The Nadia district administration has ordered a probe into the alleged negligence and apathy on the part of a doctor in treating a critical patient “gasping for air” who eventually died on Saturday at a Covid hospital in Kalyani.
Sources said a number of patients and staff of the hospital repeatedly appealed to the doctor in question to attend to the patient, but she refused to respond. The patient, suffering from acute respiratory problems, who was admitted to the Covid hospital on Saturday afternoon, died a few hours later in the evening.
Sources said the Nadia administration on Sunday was left red-faced when it transpired that a staff member of the Kalyani-based SNR Carnival Hospital put up a video on social media showing patients complaining against the “indifference” of the doctor. SNR Carnival Hospital is the designated Covid hospital run by the state government in Kalyani.
Sritama Deb, the staff member who shot and put up the video on social media, on Saturday had lodged a complaint with the district’s chief medical officer (health) against the alleged apathy of the doctor, who ordered an internal probe into the allegations.
Sources said the family members of the deceased patient had also lodged a complaint with the nodal officer in charge of the hospital.
Acknowledging the incident as “unfortunate”, Kalyani subdivisional officer Dhiman Barai said: “The allegation (of the doctor’s indifference towards a dying Covid patient) is being examined. Senior officials of the district health administration are making inquiries to find out what exactly happened. It will be too early for me to comment now.”
Without coming on record, multiple sources said that the Covid patient with serious respiratory troubles had been admitted in a critical state to the SNR Carnival hospital on Saturday, but neither any doctor nor nurse bothered to attend to the patient.
“The patient went on gasping for air and eventually died,” said a source.
In the video clip, a woman patient at the hospital is seen saying: “No doctor went to visit that patient with acute respiratory troubles. Later we found him lying dead. Even hours following his death, no doctor bothered to go near him. There is no doctor or nursing staff inside the ward to take care of patients. Patients are panicking at the sight of such negligence inside the hospital.”
Deb, who lodged the complaint, was also seen in the video saying she went to inform doctors about the critically ill man at the behest of some other patients. “The doctor on duty abused me verbally and pushed me out of his room. Three nurses present there refused to listen to me and did not bother to visit the dying patient.”
A senior official involved in the probe refused to identify the woman doctor. “It is an internal matter. We will do what is needed for justice. But nothing can be said at this stage without an investigation.”
