Paediatrician Dr Dnyaneshwar Bhosale died fighting the virus barely 10 months after he had embarked on his dream project - a children’s hospital closer home
Dr Dyaneshwar Bhosale
Divyansh: Papa kuthe ahet? Mala tyanchyashi bolaycha ahe, papa la phone laun dya (where is dad? I want to talk to him, can you please get him on the phone?)
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Grandparents – Papa deva ghari gele (dad has gone to God’s house)
Divyansh- Mala dev bappa la phone connect karun de (then connect me to God)
Grandparents – Tithe phone laagat nahi bala….. (our calls don’t go there)
This is one snatch of many conversations that 4-year-old Divyansh has with his grandparents for hours every day since his father, Dr Dnyaneshwar Bhosale, died of COVID-19. Earlier, the child would stay up until the paediatrician returned from work with a chocolate every night, but the disruption in his sweet story has left him inconsolable.
Not just Divyansh, Dnyaneshwar’s passing has hit his family on different fronts. At the time of his death on July 29, 2020, his wife Dr Priyanka was in advanced state of pregnancy. A fortnight later, she delivered a baby girl, Dnyanpriya. Unable to bear the loss, his 75-year-old grandmother, Chandrakalabai, too passed away on September 1. The only child specialist from his village Mortalwadi, 13 km from Udgir in Latur district, the 36-year-old doctor had started a 25-bed paediatric hospital with an 8-bed NICU barely ten months before the novel Coronavirus struck. He had availed R20 lakh loan from two banks to start his dream project - Bhosale Children Hospital.
While his younger brother Taterao, 28, and father Ramesh, 58, a retired school teacher, are sharing the family responsibility, they are worried about repaying the loan. “We are getting notices from the banks over repayment. The bank officials had discussed with my father about taking over the hospital equipment and auctioning it to reduce the loan burden. However, nothing of that sort has happened so far and the interest has been piling up,” Taterao told mid-day.
The family feels bitterly let down over the delay in the government compensation. “We are still awaiting the government relief of R50 lakh announced for the families of frontline warriors dying due to the pandemic. The money would have helped clear the dues, but our pleas to state and Central agencies haven’t yet yielded any result. Even after providing uninterrupted services to patients in difficult times, the government is not paying attention to COVID-martyred doctors’ families,” said Taterao, adding they have also approached the Indian Medical Association (IMA) Maharashtra, but to no avail.
A software engineer himself, Taterao said his brother was a brilliant student throughout. “We are now worried about his children and their future. The worst, my brother was not fortunate to meet his newborn daughter,” he said. Priyanka, 28, says she would encourage her kids to become doctors so that they live up to the dreams of their late father. As her father-in-law, with a monthly pension of Rs 15,000, and Taterao, who recently got married, take the responsibility of Divyansh and six-month-old Dnyanpriya, the doctor wife is keen to start her own hospital and serve the people.
Taterao said despite being a teacher with a meagre pay, their father supported Dnyaneshwar, who wanted to be a doctor from childhood. “Our father even sold his farm and valuables to fund my brother’s studies,” he said. After doing MBBS, Dnyaneshwar had practised in Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad before he returned home to provide affordable healthcare to kids. He started the hospital from a rented premises at Udgir. “In no time, it became the preferred paediatric centre of the region and my brother had to add more beds. He had also plans to build his own hospital,” said Taterao. He said Dnyaneshwar pushed himself hard during the outbreak to ensure the safety of his young patients.
The younger brother added, “His personal goals included having his own house in the town so that his kids would get better schooling and educational opportunities and provide them a path to become doctors.”
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