Punjab Government Takes Serious Note of News Published In Dainik Bhaskar

Chandigarh, August 7: The Punjab Government has taken a serious note of a news item published in the Dainik Bhaskar today. The official spokesperson of the government said that it is highly regretting to note that the news item published by Dainik Bhaskar today regarding Government Rajindra Hospital Patiala was ‘fallacious, tendentious, and callously motivated’ in gross violation of well established journalistic ideals and ethics of reporting.

Punjab Government Takes Serious Note Of Fallacious, Tendentious, And Callously Motivated News Published In Dainik Bhaskar

The Spokesperson said that the journalist has ‘declared’ a living person dead and reported without any sensitivity about the other patient not at all bothering to ascertain facts on the ground, is absurd, disquieting and problematic and has the potential to stigmatize the lives of two human beings and families involved. “For the record, however, Sukhdev Singh is recuperating at home presently after having been discharged from Rajindra Hospital,” the spokesperson.

The spokesperson further clarified that Kirandeep Kaur and not Ranjit Kaur as falsely claimed in the newspaper report is in the NON-COVID emergency ward at Rajindra Hospital at present and has been provided best available medical care. She is reportedly epileptic and had also fallen off her bed in the isolation ward, but was attended on by the on-duty attending staff. Their family members to have expressed complete satisfaction over the treatment given to their kin by hospital authorities.

The claim of the newspaper that the patients kept lying on the floor for 12 hours is a figment of the imagination and is absolutely false, untrue and highly condemnable, and the state government takes strong exception to it. This type of reportage, just to grab eyeballs for a negative story does a great disservice to the hallowed profession besides impacting the faith and trust of people in our health care facilities. This perpetuation of sensationalism at the cost of factual on the ground reporting must be eschewed, at all costs.

The Hospital authorities are well within their rights to explore the option to seek due legal recourse against the erring newspaper.