A few paramedics at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences-Ranchi (RIMS) assisted by security guards clashed with a patient’s relatives after the patient, who was admitted to the neurosurgery ward of RIMS around 2am, died a little past noon on Monday.

A RIMS official said the scuffle erupted after Rohit Kumar, 17, from Gomia in Bokaro district died of head injury and his relatives levelled charges of negligence against the hospital.

“The relatives of the youth alleged that the doctors and nurses did not attend to the patient for a long while despite his serious condition,” the official said.

“According to the relatives, the patient had already died by 12.30pm when the nurses tried to hide their negligence by faking medical care. The kin alleged that the nurses inserted an oxygen pipe in the dead patient’s nose and tried to give him saline.”

The official added that the relatives raised a hue and cry at the central emergency gate and threatened the RIMS management with dire consequences. The chaos started at 1pm and continued till 2pm.

“When the relatives were protesting, state health minister Banna Gupta was in a meeting at the administrative block with RIMS director D.K. Singh,” the official said.

Head of RIMS neurosurgery Dr Anil Kumar denied any negligence.

“The youth suffered a head injury on February 7 and was admitted to RIMS around 2am on Monday. He was under the care of Dr C.B. Sahay, who personally attended to him thrice and provided necessary medicines and injections. To the best of my knowledge, the patient was injected medicines eight times,” Dr Kumar said.

“Despite that, his relatives started a furore at the ward. When the guards objected, they engaged in a scuffle with them. They also wanted to leave the hospital with the body without an autopsy, which is against the hospital rules,” he added.