Help pours in for Jayaprakash

Deccan Herald  had reported the plight of the parents who were told that their child could be taken off the ventilator, if they failed to pay Rs 1.25 lakh bill they owed to the St John’s Medical College Hospital.

The Deccan Herald office was flooded with calls from good Samaritans who wanted to help the child, and a donor even dropped a cheque for Rs 25,000 at the office.

While several people went to the hospital directly to pay the bills and talk to the parents, Medical Education minister S A Ramadas on Friday said he contacted the hospital as soon as he learnt about the incident from Deccan Herald.

“They (parents) need not pay the bills at St John’s. The child will be given free treatment at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health,” he said. As of now, the child is still at St John’s Hospital and is expected to make a slow recovery. He will be on the ventilator for another couple of days.

By the end of the day, more than Rs 40,000 of the bill had been cleared by people who just walked in and paid the amount. Dhanalakshmi, mother of Jayaprakash, said she received calls from autodrivers who were collecting money to pay the hospital bill.

“I received calls even from Mysore. I am overwhelmed by the response,” an emotional Dhanalaksmi said. In a heartwarming incident, two Class 6 students of the Army Public School - Vardhan Khosla and Ashwin Karthik - along with Ashwin’s sister Shivani have embarked on a door-to-door collection drive for Jayaprakash.

The children are enlisting the help of many of their friends to raise more money. The couple are still accepting donations. Donors are requested to pay the money to the following account or hand it over to the couple directly at the hospital. Money collected in excess of the hospital bill will be transferred to the family in the form of a fixed deposit in Jayaprakash’s name.