Mangalore, Jan 5: Minister for Health and Family Welfare U T Khader had a surprise visitor on Saturday, during a closed-door meeting with top cops of the police department and local public representatives at Circuit House here.
Shivaraj, a 17-year-old with an amputated leg, had come all the way from Chamarajanagar district to Mangalore in anticipation of a meeting with the health minister and hopes of availing money for his treatment.
Talking to reporters, Shivraj said that after he underwent an operation nearly seven years ago to remove a tumour from his back, he developed a complication on his right leg and had to have it amputated at M S Ramaiah Memorial Hospital in Bangalore. “Now, the doctors tell me that even the left leg has to be amputated. I had been to Bangalore thrice in hopes of meeting the minister to ask for help. When I was unable to meet him there, I travelled to Mangalore after someone directed me here,” he said.
He said that he lost his mother when he was 11 months old and his father three years ago. His grandmother Madevamma, a daily-wage labourer, singlehandedly looks after and provides for him.
Following a meeting with media persons, the plight of the boy was brought to the notice of the minister who responded swiftly and offered to take the boy to Bangalore for possible treatment at Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Trauma and Orthopaedic Hospital.
Shivaraj, who has no means of informing his grandmother in Chamarajanagar, wanted to return home and promised to arrive at Bangalore on Monday for the treatment.
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