Poor infrastructure claims another life at RG Kar Hospital

Poor infrastructure or the lack of it has apparently claimed another life at R.G. Kar Medical College & Hospital within three days of a 40-year-old man dying in a faulty lift at the trauma care centre of the hospital.

This morning’s case too was at the trauma care centre, when an elderly Biswajit Samantha was brought to the hospital from his home in Nimta with complaints of difficulty in breathing and a nose-bleed. After initial treatment, he was asked to wait while admission procedures were being carried out.

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The patient, however, needed to go to the toilet while waiting and was asked to go to a pay-and-use facility some distance from the trauma care building, as the patients’ toilet there was being renovated and was locked. With no trolley or wheelchair available or made available, his son had to support him while he walked the distance. The strain was evidently too much for Samantha to bear, for he collapsed on the way.

Doctors declared him dead when he was rushed to the emergency department. For once, the commotion was not over death due to medical negligence; his son, wife and other relatives blamed the poor facilities at the hospital for his untimely demise. The police have registered a case and started an investigation.

A junior doctor at the trauma care centre said the patient had been attended to, provided initial treatment and advised admission. “He needed to go to the washroom. But the one for patients was locked, and he was asked to go to the pay-an-use toilet.” This was despite a toilet for doctors and staff being operational within the building.

The medical superintendent and vice-principal (MSVP) of the hospital, Saptarshi Chatterjee, said, “There’s only one toilet in the emergency area for patients, which is under renovation. We were already looking into the problem, as there is a shortage compared to the heavy flow of patients. We are trying to implement bio-toilets to overcome the problem.”

Deputy mayor and MLA Atin Ghosh, who is also a member of the hospital’s Rogi Kalyan Samity (patient welfare committee), criticised the handling of the patient. “A high-risk patient should not have been allowed to leave the trauma care centre to search for toilet facilities. If public toilets were unavailable due to renovation, the patient should have been allowed to use the toilets reserved for doctors and nurses,” he said. He has sought a report from the MSVP.

A patient who has sought treatment at the hospital over the years owing to its proximity to his home pointed out that despite all the focus and promises of improvement R.G. Kar Hospital got after the major tragedy in August 2024, in which a PGT was raped and murdered, very little had happened. “After the lift mishap on Friday, another uncalled for death took place today,” he said.