Seventy-year-old cancer patient's daughter files complaint with police against Khar's Hinduja Hospital for serving soup to dad in rusted flask; hospital says it is nothing, but tea stain
Is it a chai stain, or not? That's the question authorities at Khar's Hinduja Hospital and the relatives of a patient are arguing over after a flask that carried soup for the patient was found to be allegedly rusty on the inside. The issue came to light after Surgitika Chhabra, a resident of Vile Parle, filed a police complaint against the hospital for allegedly serving soup to her father, Jasvinder Singh, 70, in a corroded iron flask. Singh was being treated for cancer at the hospital.
The reddish-brown discolouring at the bottom of the flask
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While the hospital says the reddish-brown discolouring inside the flask was actually tea stain, Chhabra has refused to buy these claims, and has gone ahead and filed a complaint with the Khar Police.
The incident is said to have taken place on November 7. "My father is a cancer patient, and has lost a part of his tongue and mouth. We feed him through a tube that is connected to his stomach. After feeding him half of the soup from the flask, I noticed some stain at the bottom. When I emptied the flask, I found that it was corroded. I was shocked with the careless service of the hospital," said Chhabra.
Hinduja Hospital authorities have maintained that the flask wasn’t corroded, and that they were looking into the issue
She immediately complained about it to an official at the hospital. On November 15, when discharging her father, she enquired as to what had happened about her complaint. When she didn't get a satisfying response, Chhabra demanded that she be given the flask, so that she could complain about it to a higher authority. When the staff did not cooperate, she and her husband filed a complaint with the Khar Police.
The flask, which has now been sent to the forensic department
When contacted, the hospital denied the allegations. A spokesperson from Hinduja Hospital said, "We would like to clarify that the said flask was not corroded, but had some kind of tea stain on the inside. We requested Chhabra to hand over the flask so that we could check and corroborate with our F&B partner Ms Sodexo. But, she insisted on keeping it with her."
Speaking to mid-day, Ramchandra Dashrath Jadhav, senior police inspector of Khar Police, said, "As soon as we received the complaint, we visited the hospital. We have collected the flask, but it would take some time before we get the forensic report."