A 23-year-old youth lost one of his eyes because doctors at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital did not pull out an iron nail stuck in the eye for two days, his family has alleged.

Raja Naskar, a resident of Baruipur in South 24-Parganas, was admitted to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology at the hospital on November 25 after he injured one of his eyes while working at a press in Sealdah.

Naskar’s family has said they did not know if something was stuck in his eye when they took him to the hospital; only that something had hit him in the eye while cutting an inch-long nail into two.

Doctors attending to Naskar apparently bandaged the injured eye and stitched the eyelids before admitting him to the male ward.

Two days later, doctors said his eye needed to be operated on, according to his family. They took the family’s consent on a printed form.

On Friday, he was operated on and doctors pulled out a part of an iron nail from his eye and told the family he had lost vision in the eye.

On Saturday, Naskar’s father Janenjay Naskar lodged a complaint in writing with Ashim Kumar Ghosh, the director of RIO, asking why doctors had not told the family a nail was stuck in his son’s eye.

He alleged doctors had not diagnosed the matter in time and that led to his son’s loss of vision in the eye.

Ghosh said Naskar’s eye had developed an infection and it was “unfortunate” that he lost one of his eyes. “We have set up a committee to find out if there was any negligence on the part of doctors or anyone,” he said.