A 23-year-old intern at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, who is suspected to have taken an overdose of prescription drugs, passed away in the same hospital early on Friday.
Suvrojyoti Das, 23, lived at Nimta on the northern outskirts of Kolkata. His parents live in Bangladesh and the youth’s uncle lives in Nimta, said an official of RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
The official added that Das stayed in a house in Nimta, but not in the same one where his uncle lived.
“When his uncle did not hear anything from him for two days, he went to the house. He had to break open the door,” said the official.
An officer of Barrackpore police commissionerate said Das was found unconscious in the room on Thursday afternoon.
“His relatives took him to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital,” said the officer.
He was admitted to the hospital on Thursday evening. “Das passed away at 12.40am on Friday,” said the officer. “The young man’s guardians said that he was suffering from depression for about one-and-a-half years,” he added.
Das was still alive when he was brought to the hospital but his condition was critical. “He was admitted under a senior doctor of the hospital. The doctors tried their best to save him,” said the official at the hospital.
A doctor at the hospital said Das was brought to the hospital with “irreversible brain damage”.
The police said the initial cause of the death mentioned cardiac arrest.
“He could not be saved from repeated cardiac arrests, which seems to be because of psychiatric drug overdose. Despite all resuscitative efforts for over five hours, we could not save him,” said the official at the hospital.
Das would have received his MBBS registration after completing the internship at the hospital.
“His uncle and others who brought him also carried a prescription and some strips of psychiatric medicines. After speaking to them, we learned that he was under psychiatric treatment,” said the doctor.
The youth was always very “withdrawn” and hardly had any friends in the college, officials said. The doctor said he was surprised that hardly any of his batchmates spoke about him after his death, which suggested that Das was very “segregated” from others.
The police have registered an unnatural death case. Das’ post-mortem has been completed at the hospital, the cops said.