Kolkata: Healthcare waits for healing touch

KOLKATA: Topsia resident Rabia Begum, who was in labour, arrived outside the locked gates of Calcutta National Medical College & Hospital (CNMCH) at 1pm on Wednesday after being turned away from three more hospitals. Authoritieswereforcedtolether in after local people and police intervened. Rabia was not the only one who had an agonizing day seeking treatment.
Thousands of patients from the city andthesuburbswereleftstranded outside hospital gates — and some on the campus — after all medicalservicesweresuspended due to protesting junior doctors and interns “My daughter-in-law has been in labour since 9am.We came to CNMCH first, but the gates were locked and there were policemen outside who chased away our auto saying the hospital was shut. We then went to SSKM, Medical College and Hospital and NRS Medical College and Hospital but did not receive any help. She is in immense pain andI am afraid if she does not receive immediate help something may happen to her and the child,” said Syeda Begum while wheeling Rabia into the hospital.
Throughout Wednesday, such scenes of chaos and helplessness played out in several hospitals which refused to dispense even basic emergency facilities like trauma care, attending women in labour and patients suffering from cancer. Thousands of patients and their relativeswho arrived in these hospitals for treatment from far-flung areas of the state had a harrowing time accessing medicalfacilities. Even ancillary services like stretchers were missing with many families lifting the patients on their arms and trying to enter the emergency and OPD sections of the hospitals in the hope of getting some treatment.
Patients and their family members were shocked when they spotted a placard outside CNMCH announcing the hospital was shut. “This is unbelievable. It has never happened that a hospital has been shut down like this,” said Mohammad Irshad, who was brought to the hospital from Topsia with a broken hand.
At SSKM Hospital, cops cordoned off the entrance to the emergency department with guard rails as agitated patients and their family members demanded that medical services are restored. “My son was supposed to undergo an operation for a broken leg. Last night, I was told that it will not happen because of the protest. My son is in immense pain. So many people cannot be punished for the mob which vandalised NRS and injured the junior doctors,” said Anukul Mullick, who came from Bagnan.
In hospitalslikeRGKar and Medical College and Hospital, junior doctors sat inside and outside the emergency department, suspending all services as patients lay under the scorching son.
Akabar Hussain, a resident of Sheikhpara in Malda, was lying senseless in an alley just behind the emergency department of Medical College and Hospital, Calcutta. The mason who was diagnosed with blood cancer last month was referred from SSKM Hospital on Tuesday afternoon. But by the time Hussain —accompanied by his brothers and cousins — arrived, the doctors had started protesting, suspending all medical services. Cousin Anwar Hussain said: “My brother is a mason and the only earning member of the family. We cannot afford to go to a private nursing home. When we arrived here last evening, the doctors said they had stopped working because of the attack on a doctor in NRS. We have been staying outside in the open since last evening, waiting for medical services to resume.”