UP: Man denied ambulance by hospital, carries wife's body on stretcher

Family members of a 35-year-old woman have charged the district hospital in Kaushabi district of Uttar Pradesh with refusing ambulance facility which led to the man carrying his wife's body on a stretcher, a charge denied by the senior hospital officials.

The incident surfaced in a video which was later telecasted on local news TV channels.

The video showed the man, identified as Mahesh Chandra, pulling a stretcher on which his wife Malti Devi's body lay covered in white sheet after she died during labour pain.

Chandra also alleged that he was asked to pay Rs 800 for the vehicle.

Chief Medical Superintendent Dr Deepak Seth, however, said that the vehicle for carrying the body home was provided free of cost by the hospital.

"The news being shown in a section of media is misleading ... the man is pulling the stretcher only from the ward to the parking lot from where the vehicle carried the body home," Seth said, adding the woman was brought dead.   

Refuting claims of the man that money was demanded for the facility, he said it could be some private vehicle owners outside the hospital who might have asked for money.   

"The hospital vehicle is provided free of cost," he said.

(With PTI Inputs)