All that 17-year-old Bhagyasri wanted was to lose some weight. Her desire, however, ended in tragedy when a weight-loss treatment at an Ayurvedic hospital in Erode ended in her death on Wednesday.
According to her parents, Bhagyasri, a student of Sri Balakrishna Polytechnic College, went to the Herbocare Ayurvedic Hospital in Erode as the owner of the hospital, Naveen Balaji, gave them a guarantee that Bhagyasri would lose weight with their treatment.
“Last month, we had taken our daughter for treatment. They had treated her for nine days. After that, on June 2, we again went to the hospital and they gave us medicines and asked my daughter to consume them regularly,” Shakti, Bhagyasri’s father, said.
Bhagyasri was overweight and had a wheezing problem, said her father. “Otherwise she was perfectly alright. She was going to a regular college to study. But after two days of consuming the medicine, my daughter started fainting and was behaving like a three-year-old,” he said.
Following this, they decided to take their daughter to a private hospital. “We informed the doctor that we are taking our daughter to another hospital. He immediately asked us to bring her to Herbocare hospital. We again took her there, they gave her some medicine and my daughter was unconscious for the next four days,” said Shakti.
Despite Bhagyasri’s condition, however, her parents decided to attend a wedding on early on Thursday morning, after receiving assurances from the doctors that their daughter was in good hands. “A doctor name Kalpana told us on Wednesday that they will take care of our daughter and asked us to go attend the wedding. I and my wife left for the wedding. I called every half an hour to check on her health. They kept saying she is fine,” he said.
However, Bhagyasri’s condition took a turn for the worse on Wednesday night. Shakti alleges that the doctors at Herbocare then took her to another private hospital without informing them.
When Shakti called again on Thursday morning at around 9am, he said, the doctor told him that Bhagyasri was better and was drinking soup. “We were happy that her condition was improving but after an hour, an ambulance arrived at our house with our daughter’s dead body,” said Shakthi.
The Herbocare authorities simply left Bhagyasri’s dead body on their doorstep without any prior warning, alleged Shakti. It was then left to Shakti and his wife to rush Bhagyasri’s body to the General Hospital in Coimbatore for an autopsy.
To add to their ordeal, reports say, Bhagyasri’s family members were faced with further apathy at the Coimbatore GH. Following the autopsy, they were allegedly told that they could take Bhagyasri’s body home only after paying a bribe of Rs 3,000.
Herbocare representatives, however, deny that there was any problem with Bhagyasri’s treatment or their communications with her family. Speaking to reporters, Naveen Balaji, the owner of Herbocare hospital, said, “The girl died at around 10.30 pm on Wednesday. We did not inform them (the parents) because they were attending a wedding early on Thursday morning. We informed the parents about the death at around 6am. The girl was critical on Wednesday, and that is why we took her to another hospital where they declared her dead. We had given her the proper treatment,” he claimed.
Shakti has filed a complaint at the Kavindapadi police station alleging that Bhagyasri died due to improper treatment given to her at Herbocare. According to the police, the case has been filed under Section 174 of the CrPc (directing police to enquire into cases of unnatural death) and further action can only be taken after the post-mortem report becomes available.