Patients turning up at government medical colleges for emergency treatment are being turned away as junior doctors are continuing with their cease-work to protest the rape and murder of the postgraduate trainee at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
Metro came across patients on Monday who were not admitted because there were not enough doctors in the emergency ward of several medical colleges in Calcutta.
Many patients and their family members had to wait for hours outside the emergency department in most hospitals.
Serina Bibi, 58, who is suffering from a respiratory tract infection, was brought to SSKM Hospital from Basirhat’s Minakha in an ambulance on Monday. She had to shuttle between two departments for hours but was still denied treatment.
“We went to the emergency ward around 11am. We were asked to go to the surgery department. Once we reached there, we were again sent back to the emergency ward. This time we were told that there were no beds and no doctors to treat my mother,” said Amina Bibi, Serina’s daughter.
“They asked us to go to Sambhunath Pandit Hospital or MR Bangur Hospital. We are clueless what to do now,” Amina said, while taking her mother back to the ambulance.
At Medical College Kolkata, a cancer patient who is also suffering from jaundice was turned away.
The 42-year-old patient, Zayda Khatun, came to the hospital with son Mohammad Wazim from Titagarh, in North 24-Parganas.
“My mother is suffering from breast cancer. And now she has been diagnosed with jaundice, too. We took her to the emergency ward, where we were told that my mother could not be admitted as there were not enough doctors,” Wazim said.
“Doctors in the emergency ward prescribed some medicines and told us to return home. But my mother is not in a condition to be treated at home,” said Wazim, who had to pay Rs 1,200 to the ambulance to bring her mother to the hospital.
The junior doctors at all government medical colleges are staying away from emergency as well non-emergency duty. Only senior doctors, who are all faculty members, are running the emergency departments, indoor wards and the OPDs.
Radha Krishna Bhuinya, 25, took his 56-year-old father Sushant, who is suffering from respiratory distress, to NRS Medical College and Hospital.
“My father was under treatment at Diamond Harbour Government Medical College and Hospital. He was referred to NRS hospital this morning after his condition worsened, but officials in the emergency ward here said he could not be admitted as there were no doctors to treat him,” the son said, standing outside NRS hospital’s emergency ward on Monday afternoon.
“The doctors told us to visit the OPD but the OPD had closed by then,” said Radha Krishna.
An official in the state health department said they have asked senior doctors to fill in for the protesting doctors and treat patients in the emergency departments.
“But the gap cannot be bridged as there are far less senior doctors compared with the junior medics,” the health department official said.