The family of Telugu poet Varavara Rao (81) has, in a press release, demanded transparent and official updates on his health, after there were media reports of him suffering from a head injury while at JJ Hospital.
The family has been pointing for some time about the lack of official information from the time he was taken to JJ Hospital last Monday. They said the only time they got official information is when he tested positive for Coronavirus. Even the information of him being shifted to St. George Hospital thereafter, which is a COVID-19 facility, did not come to them from authorities. It is only when they made calls to jail authorities, that they got a confirmation that he was indeed shifted. All health information is only secondary sources, they said.
“Not sharing health updates of a person in judicial custody with his family is illegal, unconstitutional and inhuman…in the absence of official and transparent information, various speculations, rumours and half truths are also being spread causing further anxiety to family and friends,” they said. It is the family’s right to get official transparent updates on Rao’s health status, line of treatment and probable risks, they said and called not sharing it not only a gross violation of the family’s right to information, but also a grave misconduct on the part of the state government institutions.
As Rao is reportedly not in a position to do anything on his own, they demanded to allow a family member to assist him and to make his medical records accessible to them.
