Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday suspended two doctors and launched an investigation after a patient's amputated leg was used as a pillow to prop up his head.


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Administrators at the government-run Maharani Laxmibai Medical College and Hospital in Jhansi had vowed "strict action" after visuals showing a man lying on a stretcher with the amputated limb being used as a headrest became viral.


"We have set up a four-member committee to find out who put the severed leg under the patient`s head," Sadhna Kaushik, principal of the Maharani Laxmibai Medical College and Hospital in Jhansi, had said.


"Strict action will be taken if our staff is found at fault," she had said earlier, adding that ''two doctors have been suspended pending investigation.''


The doctors at Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College had allegedly put the amputated leg under the victim's head in order to help him.


However, the sight of a person's amputated leg being used as a pillow came as a huge shock to many who were present there.


The shocking incident came to light after a local TV channel aired visuals of the victim's amputated leg being used as a pillow as he lay on a stretcher inside the casualty ward of the hospital.


The man, who was a cleaner in a school bus, had sustained serious injuries when the bus carrying children of a private school turned turtle in a bid to avoid a collision with a tractor in Mauranipur area in Jhansi district on Saturday.


The cleaner was immediately rushed to the Jhansi medical college hospital where the doctors amputated his leg to prevent the infection from spreading, reports said.


The relatives of the man, who was identified as 28-year-old Ghanshyam, latert old reporters that the hospital staff ignored their requests that he be given a pillow. 


"When we reached the hospital, we saw his leg being used as a headrest," Janaki Prasad, a relative, said.


"I repeatedly asked the doctors to intervene but they refused," Prasad added, saying Ghanshyam`s relatives eventually bought a pillow from a local market.


Kaushik, however, said that the patient was given "immediate" medical attention and one of his relatives placed the leg under his head, according to the PTI.


"The doctor looked for something to raise his head. The patient`s attendant used the leg," she said according to PTI.


All this came in the wake of reports that sweepers and ward boys have been treating the patients and even performing minor surgeries in the district hospitals in UP.
 
Many state-run hospitals in Uttar Pradesh are ill-equipped, severely underfunded and stretched to breaking point. Just a handful of specialists are available to treat millions.


Last year, dozens of children died in a single week at a government hospital in Uttar Pradesh that suffered oxygen shortages. 


And an unlicensed doctor was arrested last month for allegedly infecting at least 46 people with HIV by re-using a syringe.


(With PTI inputs)