Date:19/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/19/stories/2008041960721000.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Boy dies at medical camp opened by Rajasekhara Reddy

Special Correspondent

Medical officer says boy died two hours before being brought to the camp
YSR announces ex-gratia of Rs. 50,000

MYDUKUR (Kadapa district): An 18-month-old boy Manor Kumar Reddy died while doctors were examining him after Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy launched the Rajiv Arogyasri scheme and inaugurated a medical camp near the venue of a public meeting at Telugu Ganga colony here on Friday.

The boy, who was suffering from a congenital heart problem, had earlier been treated in Kurnool and Hyderabad. He was brought to the medical camp here as specialists were slated to examine patients, his wailing mother told reporters.

The doctors declared him dead when Minister for Medical Education Galla Aruna Kumari was addressing the public meeting nearby, she said. The grief-stricken woman came on to the dais later to draw Dr. Reddy’s attention to her son’s death, but security personnel pulled her away. Meanwhile, District Medical and Health Officer T. Venkataramana Reddy said the boy had died two hours before being brought to the medical camp.

The Chief Minister, at a subsequent public meeting at Chapadu, announced ex-gratia of Rs. 50,000 to the woman for her baby’s death.

Later, MRPS activists disrupted the Chief Minister’s address at the public meeting by raising slogans demanding micro-classification of SCs. YSR retorted that he knew MRPS State president Manda Krishna Madiga well and would discuss the issue with him. The MRPS activists then came near the dais and raised slogans.

Efforts of some leaders, Collector M.T. Krishna Babu and SP M.M. Bhagawat to pacify them proved futile. Some DSC 2006 candidates also drew the Chief Minister’s attention alleging injustice to them. Police personnel pulled away MRPS activists and the DSC candidates when they tried to meet the Chief Minister.