Mob ransacks emergency ward after woman’s death

KOLKATA: Almost 15 months after the emergency ward of the Peerless Hospital on EM Bypass was vandalised, the horror returned to haunt the doctors on Monday morning. Claiming that they were kept in the dark about the diagnosis and subsequent death of 82-year-old Radharani Debnath from Ramkrishna Pally of Sonarpur, around 25 people who introduced themselves as her acquaintances burst into the emergency ward and broke computers, furniture and destroyed the files of the 20-odd critical care patients admitted there.
For 20 minutes, the protesters led by eight to 10 men virtually took control of the ward, sending doctors scurrying for cover. It was only after cops from Panchasayer police station reached the hospital and nabbed three of the accused that normalcy could be restored. Two of them were arrested.

The police said they were planning to lodge a stringent FIR and are mulling slapping Section 4 of the West Bengal Medicare Service Institution and Medicare Service Personnel (prevention of violence and damage to property) Act, 2009, along with the Indian Penal Code. They have secured relevant CCTV footage from the hospital as well.

According to police and hospital sources, the incident followed the death of Debnath around 11am on Monday. She had been admitted to the same hospital in the past as well. “Her son-in-law and daughter brought Debnath to the emergency ward around 8.30pm on Sunday. Our doctors found her suffering from septicaemia. We began administering antibiotics, but she suffered a cardiac arrest around 5am. There was no one waiting for her and the number provided to us was found switched off,” a source said.

“We contacted them around around 8.30am and they arrived soon after. We informed them about Debnath’s death immediately, but they were angry. Without any provocation and without letting us explain, the mob barged into the emergency ward,” claimed a doctor.

“They vandalized our hospital and left other patients in distress,” said Dr Indraneel Dasgupta, clinical director, department of emergency medicine. Sajal Dey, a relative of a patient admitted in the same ward told TOI, “For a second I thought I might have to shift my relative. The hospital authorities, though, worked quickly and got the emergency department running within 20 minutes.”

“The security guards were stopped from carrying out their duty. We picked up three people for questioning and brought them to Panchasayer police station. Later, two of them — the deceased’s son-in-law Bidyut Kishore Roy Chowdhury, 52, and his son Bishal, 22 — were arrested,” an officer said.

The patient’s daughter, however, said, “The hospital has admitted that the temporary pacemaker was removed from my mother’s body since they felt she was stable. My husband was trying to talk to the doctor about this when the staffers asked us to get out. I was outside the emergency room and don’t know what went on inside.”