Trinamul Congress MLA and former chairman of the rogi kalyan samiti (RKS) urged people to ‘boycott SSKM Hospital’ after a patient, close to him, was denied admission to the heal hub on Saturday night, virtually exposing the state of government healthcare.

He also threatened to quit if the party leadership takes action against him for making strong statements against healthcare services at SSKM Hospital to the media. Senior doctors associated with the SSKM Hospital as well as Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (IPGME&R) felt the way Mr Mitra has launched his crusade against the hospital, is an unheard-of event, landing the party in an embarrassing situation.

Madan’s statements to the reporters expressing his grievances prompted the SSKM hospital authorities to call a press conference on Saturday afternoon. “We won’t allow any kind of hooliganism inside the hospital.

The chief minister also stands beside us in this regard. Our doctors and healthcare staff have been heckled by the patient party,” Dr Monimoy Bandyopadhyay, directorcum-principal of SSKM Hospital, told reporters without taking the name of Mr Mitra.

“The incident that happened in our hospital was unwanted and I have briefed the chief minister everything about it. Doctors, nurses and health workers were intentionally abused and harassed by the patient party. She has asked us to take a ‘zero tolerance’ stand on the matter,” Dr Bandyopadhyay said.

Trouble started around 1 am on Saturday when Subhadeep Pal, a road accident victim, was taken to the hospital but he was allegedly denied admission. He was then taken to a private hospital. The Trinamul Congress Kamarhati MLA rushed to the SSKM Hospital and tried to get the patient admitted to the trauma care centre. He reportedly called up Dr Bandyopadhay and Dr PK Roy, SSKM superintendent seeking their intervention.

But no one was available during that time. The patient was lying unattended for more than six hours without any medical attention. An aggrieved Mr Mitra then called up the minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya. “Hospital authorities could not receive my calls despite repeated attempts.

Chandrima Bhattacharya could not also contact the authorities. Arup Biswas, chairman of the SSKM RKS, had also tried but one assistant super of the hospital informed him that the patient was attended by a doctor. But there was no scope to get the patient admitted to the hospital during that time,” he told reporters.