Ruckus at Howrah District Hospital after one-year-old child dies; five held

HOWRAH: Trouble broke out at Howrah District Hospital on Thursday after the relatives of a one-year-old girl ransacked the office of the hospital superintendent and assaulted the hospital staff following the death of the child.
The girl, Piu Shaw, was brought in at the hospital around 1.30pm with severe fever and breathing trouble and the family alleged she died within an hour without any senior doctor attending her.When she died, the family members went berserk and heckled doctors at the paediatric department before storming into the hospital superintendent’s office and ransacking the furniture inside.
A large team of policemen was deployed to handle the situation. Cops drove away the agitated family members and arrested five of them.
The girl’s mother, Puja Shaw, said the doctors did not treat her properly and had only put her on drips. An official complaint of medical negligence was lodged with the Howrah police station. “My daughter died in my arms. I kept on calling the nurses and doctors but they did nothing other than giving her oxygen and putting her on drips. I believe she died because of a negligence on part of the doctors,” said Shaw, a resident of Howrah’s Belgachia. The superintendent of the hospital, Narayan Chatterjee, said the child was suffering from severe pneumonia and could not survive even as the treatment was initiated. “If we receive a complaint of medical negligence, we will surely probe into the matter,” said Chatterjee.
State minister Arup Roy, who is also the president of the Rogi Kalyan Samity – a body of political representatives and hospital officials looking after patient service – said they will probe into the incident. “The relatives should not have assaulted the doctors and damaged the hospital properties. But their allegation of medical negligence also needs to be looked into,” said Roy.