The cease-work by junior doctors has crippled services at government hospitals across the city.

Patients and their family members had to wait for hours outside emergency rooms in most hospitals on Sunday. Many of them said they were denied admission.

Outpatient departments are usually shut on Sundays. Patients’ relatives said treatment in indoor wards, too, was disrupted.

Asked about the plight of patients, a health department official said: “All government hospitals have been directed to ensure that services are not affected.”

The reality, however, was much different, as a visit by The Telegraph to a number of hospitals in the city on Sunday revealed.

Forty-year-old Mithu Das, suffering from an intestinal infection and blood loss, was brought to Medical College Kolkata, in Bowbazar, from Jagatballavpur in Howrah in an ambulance. She had to wait for an hour outside the emergency room.

“She was admitted to a local hospital, which referred her to Medical College Kolkata this morning. The ambulance trip alone cost us Rs 3,000. But now we are not being allowed inside. The guards are saying that only relatives of patients who were brought to the emergency ward on Saturday or before can enter the ward. No new patients are being taken in,” said Bhagyasree Das, Mithu’s daughter.

Clueless about where to go next, she was seen making frantic phone calls.

Paromita Mandal, a resident of Khardah in North 24-Parganas, was accompanying her father-in-law, who has been diagnosed with blood cancer.

“The local doctor told us to come here. But even a cancer patient is not being allowed inside,” said Mandal.

Muhammad Munna, from Rajabazar, stood helplessly outside the emergency ward. His wife, a paralysed cardiac patient, was lying on the passenger seat of a yellow cab.

“She is gasping for breath. But I can’t take her to the emergency ward,” he said.

The collapsible gates of the emergency ward, manned by police personnel and hospital guards, hand only a sliver of space between them.

On Sunday afternoon, Sahan Shahid Molla was briskly walking up and down the compound of the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital in Park Circus.

Molla’s 28-year-old daughter gave birth to a boy at the hospital on Sunday morning.

“The baby is fine. But the mother has lost a lot of blood. She is in a lot of pain. But we are not being allowed to visit her in the ward, apparently because there is no doctor we can talk to. The sisters are doing whatever they can. We are praying for her health,” said Molla, who came from Diamond Harbour.

A stone’s throw away, a sit-in by protesting doctors was in full flow. “No Security, No Work,” read a poster.

Tahejul Molla, from Canning in South 24-Parganas, said his mother was admitted to the chest medicine ward almost three weeks ago. She was suffering from pneumonia.

“Today, I saw only one doctor checking on patients in the ward,” said Molla.

A veteran doctor said if a cease-work is restricted to the outpatient department
(OPD) and indoor wards, senior doctors can handle the situation.

“But it is difficult for us to manage the emergency ward, where critical patients come,” he said.

At the NRS Medical College and Hospital, only “very critical” patients were being allowed inside the emergency ward, said a guard posted outside.

A series of empty stretchers was lined near the emergency wards at the hospitals throughout Sunday.

At the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, the epicentre of the protests, the emergency ward was as good as shut. Hardly any new patient was allowed inside till the evening, when the cease-work was extended to the emergency ward.