Doc goes to wedding in hospital ambulance

KOLKATA: Late on Friday night, the relatives of a 73-year-old cardiac patient at Baranagar State General Hospital were frantically looking for an ambulance. Doctors had referred him to RG Kar after his condition deteriorated. But the only hospital ambulance was nowhere to be found: superintendent Biswanath Das had taken it to attend a wedding.
Furious locals allegedly beat up Das and some other doctors after he returned.Das later tried to defend his actions, saying, "Superintendents of this hospital do not get a car." Sanchita Bakshi, director of health services, was more brazen. "So what if the super went to attend a wedding in the ambulance? Supers of government hospitals can use ambulances at any time as they are on duty round the clock."
Relatives of Ghanashyam Das, the cardiac patient, wouldn't have known that when they started looking for the ambulance. The 73-year-old Baranagar resident's condition was deteriorating and it was important to shift him to RG Kar.
"It was not possible to get another ambulance at 11 pm. We learned that the hospital super had taken the ambulance for private use. We had no other option but to inform the local club," said Ghanashyam's grandson Manohar Das. The club is within the hospital premises.
Das returned just as club members came out to find out if Manohar's allegations were true. On seeing the super, they lost their cool and started thrashing him. They demanded that the superintendent explain why he had taken the ambulance for his personal use. Later, Ghanashyam was taken to RG Kar hospital in the ambulance.
Das later lodged a complaint against the youths for thrashing him and other doctors. The youths went absconding after the incident.
"We had earlier heard that the superintendent had used this ambulance to go to Park Street on New Year's Eve," said a local. Madan Kanti Das, the ambulance driver, said he had merely followed orders while taking the super to Salt Lake. "I was also beaten up by the club members," he said.
Mrinal Kumar Acharya, a hospital doctor who was then on outdoor duty, said the super and some other doctors and nurses went to attend the wedding of a doctor's daughter. He claimed that the doctors did not take the ambulance. "It was the super's decision to take the ambulance and the other doctors just accompanied him," he said.
Health services director Sanchita Bakshi said the matter was not important. "Two Trinamool Congress-dominated clubs have made false allegations against the superintendent. I will ask him about the matter. But this is not a big issue," she said.