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Journalism of Courage
Twenty days after Kolkata was left shocked by the death of Amit Dalmiya in a freak accident, a budding cricketer died on Monday allegedly because of doctors’ callousness. Seventeen-year-old Rajnis Patel of Bhawanipore was admitted with a shinbone fracture at the state-controlled SSKM hospital four months ago. He died on June 2 after five botched-up operations.
The first two operations were reportedly carried out by post-graduate trainees. A voluntary group took up Rajnis’s cause and, led by Delhi-based NGO Last Resort, filed a complaint with the Bhawanipore police station against the doctors. Yesterday, the West Bengal government suspended senior doctor Dilip Majumder.
The government took the punitive action after a three-member panel that probed the circumstances leading to Rajnis’s death found prima facie evidence of negligence on Majumder’s part. Majumder led the team of doctors that was supposed to attend on Rajnis.
The only child of Manoj Patel, a barber, Rajnis played second division cricket in the city and received an injury in his shinbone when he collided with another fielder during a match on February 6. He was admitted to the SSKM the next day.
Last Resort head Anna Lucia told The Indian Express: ‘‘We are also going to file cases both at the consumer court and the civil court demanding compensation and exemplary punishment for the doctors, especially professor Majumder and his deputy, Michael Heera.’’
Rajnis’s family alleges that Majumder and his team hardly attended on the teenager. ‘‘He was bleeding for 20 days before he died but no one came. They said pair ko upar taang do (just keep the leg upright) and it will be all right. We kept on calling the doctors on their mobiles but they didn’t care. I will kill them if I get them,’’ cousin Pankaj Singh, who is also the Patels’ landlord, says.
Describing the incident as a shame on the Health Department, Director of Medical Education Chittaranjan Maity says: ‘‘The inquiry is still on. If more doctors are responsible for the tragedy we will punish them too.’’ Maity also promises that the state will see such things do not happen again. ‘‘We will see that accountability is fixed and doctors attending patients do that regularly.’’
However, doctors themselves express scepticism about the government’s efforts to set things right. ‘‘According to the MCI directives, when post-graduate trainees perform surgeries on a patient, it should be done under the supervision of senior doctors. But this is hardly followed in our hospital,’’ says the head of an SSKM department requesting anonymity.
