Hospital wrecked by dead patient’s relatives

Family members of patients ransacked the Chinsura hospital late Sunday night, following the death of a patient admitted at the hospital. The unruly family members made a ruckus and thrashed the emergency ward and broke the outside door in front of other patients and some medical staff.

The medical staff was unable to stop the errant patients and their relatives and called up the police to help. However, most of the wards were rampaged, before the police came in.

Police said, Biplab Biswas, a 37-year-old patient and resident of Chinsura’s Rabindranagar, died on Sunday night. His family members, along with some other people, became violent after hearing the news of his demise and went on a rampage in the hospital.

On Monday morning, soon after the incident, a police picket was posted in front of the hospital, but tension could not be lowered.

Biswas was a local Trinamool Congress leader and the joint secretary of the ward committee. He had been admitted with symptoms of fever and had been given all adequate medicines. But the doctors could not limit his body temperature and on Sunday evening, his condition deteriorated and he was moved to the emergency ward.

“We tried our best to save the life of Biswas, but we could not do anything in the end. It was not medical negligence,” said a doctor. The patient’s relatives, however, alleged that the doctors did not attend to him properly. He could have been alive, if the treatment had gone the right way. “We will definitely probe whether there was any medical negligence. At present, though, we have requested the patient’s relatives to calm down,’ said a police officer. Meanwhile, Rapid Action Force was pressed into action to tame the crowd there. “The patient’s relatives suddenly got violent and started to wreck the hospital property. Two wards were partly wrecked. We have filed a police complaint,” said a district health department official. Meanwhile, a team from the district health department reached the spot to inspect the situation.