Forty-year-old Junu Dafadar went to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital because her surgery for gall bladder removal was due on Thursday.
Eighty-year-old Rupali Raychaudhuri, suffering from shortness of breath, came to the same hospital hoping she would be admitted.
Both had to return home without treatment, a plight shared by hundreds of other patients who have been turned away from government medical colleges since the cease-work by junior doctors over the RG Kar rape and murder started on August 9.
Dafadar and Raychaudhuri were told that they could not get the care they needed because of inadequacy of doctors.
Before heading home, Raychaudhuri tried Medical College Kolkata. No luck there as well.
The ordeal of the patients goes on unabated as the doctors’ strike drags on.
Dafadar, a resident of Paikpara in north Calcutta, came to RG Kar because the ticket issued from the outpatient department on August 31 mentioned that her operation was scheduled for Thursday.
She carried the ticket in her hand as she came to the hospital around noon. Metro has seen the ticket.
“But a doctor told me that the operation could not be done. There aren’t enough doctors. He asked me whether I was aware of the cease-work by the (junior) doctors. He also told me that unless the cease-work was lifted, the operation could not be performed,” Dafadar said.
In government hospitals, senior doctors conduct operations. However, junior doctors assist them and play a key role in post-operative assessment and care.
This newspaper reported on Thursday that the family of a 63-year-old woman with a stone in her gall bladder got her discharged from RG Kar within minutes of admission on Wednesday because the attending doctor told them that the hospital might not be able to provide the necessary care if she had to be operated on.
Over 8,000 junior doctors in government hospitals have been on a cease-work since a postgraduate trainee was found raped and murdered at RG Kar on August 9.
An upset Dafadar said: “I came to the hospital because I was told to come on Thursday. I was looking forward to the operation at RG Kar because I can’t afford going anywhere else. I don’t have the money to get treated at a private hospital.”
Talks to end the stalemate and persuade the junior doctors to return to work could not begin on Thursday as they insisted that the meeting between their representatives and the chief minister at Nabanna be live-streamed, a demand that the government rejected.
Raychaudhuri, a resident of Sovabazar in north Calcutta, came with son Pratik to RG Kar around 1.45pm.
Pratik wanted to get his mother admitted because she was gasping.
“She could not inhale. At this age, this could lead to complications. But she was refused admission on the ground that there were not enough doctors,” Pratik said.
He said he runs a printing press and his earnings are far from enough.
He took his mother to Medical College Kolkata around 4.30pm.
“But the doctors there denied her admission citing the same reason. I can’t afford to get my mother treated at a private hospital. This cease-work has become a nightmare for families like us,” said Pratik.
The mother and the son returned home to Sovabazar around 6pm.
When Metro contacted Saptarshi Chatterjee, medical superintendent-cum-vice-principal of RG Kar, and narrated the plight of the two patients, he sought their contact numbers.
But when this newspaper tried to pass on their numbers to Chatterjee, he could not be contacted.