Child dies in Agartala Medical College and Hospital for delay in blood supply

Agartala: A pall of gloom descended here following the death of a two and half years old boy in Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) due to delay in supply of blood from blood bank.

The AGMC authority and hospital superintendent Dr Subrata Baidya termed the delay in blood bank as a regular issue.

However, the authority has lodged police complaint against the irked patient party who broke the glass in the blood bank on refusal. Sajal Das, father of the victim, alleged that blood bank officials were not sympathetic to the child rather unnecessarily harassed him for more than two hours in the hospital.

According to report, Sajal (32) along with his son Swapnil were hit by a brick loaded truck in Jirania of Agartala last afternoon when he was returning home by a cycle.Sajal skidded off into a ditch while Swapnil came under the wheels of the truck. A stranger took both of them to a local hospital where they were referred to AGMC, as Swapnil was in need of blood.

The doctors in surgery department attending Swapnil asked for blood immediately. Since nobody was accompanying them, Sajal had to go to collect blood form the bank with serious injuries.

He was made to wait for an hour for grouping the blood after which he was asked to get a requisition for the amount of blood needed.In the meantime, Swapnil died while undergoing surgery due to excessive bleeding and shortage of blood supply in the body.

The family members gathered at the evening and started blaming the doctors and blood bank officials for the death and tension mounted up. The hospital authority lodged a complaint alleging that the patient party had created nuisance in the hospital as the blood supply to the child was procedural delay only.

In another incident, an expecting mother was left on movement for more than 12 hrs in different hospitals and nursing homes since last night, as no doctor was available to attend her till late this morning. Kishore Banik, a resident of Khowai alleged that he brought his wife in AGMC with severe labour pain late last night.

There was no senior doctors in the hospital and allegedly the junior doctors advised them to shift the patient to Kolkata, as she is critical.The patient, Sima Das, also a health worker with the Tripura government was taken to two leading private hospitals at night but was refused stating that they did not have gynaecologists on duty. Finally, she was brought to state referral hospital IGM where she was left unattended till 0900 hrs.

Again she was taken to AGMC but the doctors on duty did not attend her for two hours, as senior doctors were not available in the hospital. The incident sparked off fresh tension in the hospital. "The healthcare system in Tripura has been dwindling every passing day and the government becomes a mute spectator. A group of incompetent people in AGMC doing nasty politics that prevented good doctors to serve better," said a doctor of AGMC.