A 16-month-old boy who had to travel nearly 300km from Pakur in Jharkhand to SSKM Hospital to get a meat bone stuck in his respiratory tract extracted has been discharged from the hospital but his family had to spend Rs 6,000 on the journey home.

Shariyat Hussain was discharged from SSKM earlier this week. His family is now worried how to bring him back to SSKM for check-up.

“We had to pay Rs 6,000 for an ambulance to return home. Usually, it would take not more than Rs 3,500,” said the boy's uncle Mubarak, a college student.

Doctors at SSKM have scheduled a check-up for Shariyat on April 30.

“But the lockdown will continue till May 3. It will be difficult to travel. Earlier, police didn’t stop us because my nephew’s condition was critical. But now we can’t hire a vehicle and ambulances are demanding a very high price,” Mubarak told Metro over phone from Pakur on Friday.

The doctors at SSKM have advised the boy’s family to get his stitches cut at a local hospital after a week.

“That will be done. But our problem is taking him for a check-up to Calcutta. Even if the lockdown is lifted, we are not sure whether public transport will be allowed,” Mubarak said.

The Telegraph had earlier reported how Shariyat's family had taken him to several government and private hospitals in Murshidabad district but none could treat him.

Shariyat was initially taken to private and government hospitals in Dhulian and Jangipur. The doctors at Jangipur sub-divisional hospital had referred the boy to the Murshidabad Medical College and Hospital in Behrampore. There, he was treated for acute respiratory distress for two days before referring him to the NRS Medical College and Hospital or any other hospital in Calcutta.

“We don’t have the required manpower and equipment to treat a critical paediatric patient. Also, we don’t have facility to perform bronchoscopy (a procedure that allows doctors to look into the patient’s air passage and lungs) on kids,” Devdas Saha, the medical superintendent-cum-vice-principal of the Murshidabad medical college had said.

The child reached SSKM in such a critical state that he could not undergo surgery on the first two days. The operation was performed last week and the meat bone, 1cm long and 0.5cm wide, was taken out.

“He was briefly put on a ventilator after the surgery. But now he is stable and cured. He has no problem in breathing or eating,” said Kaustuv Das Biswas, an assistant professor at SSKM’s Institute of Otorhinolaryngology and Head Neck Surgery and part of the team that operated on Shariyat.