KOLKATA: Two persons died on the premises of a state-run hospital in Kolkata on Monday allegedly after they were made to wait for a long time before being admitted, a charge denied by the hospital.
A 28-year-old typhoid patient died on a trolley after he was refused admission by two other hospitals, while an elderly woman, who was suffering from body ache and swollen feet, succumbed inside a car in which she was taken to the KMCH.
Family members of the two claimed that doctors were late in attending to them and that led to their deaths.
A senior KMCH official denied negligence on the part of the hospital and claimed that the two were brought dead.
One of them was Ashok Ruidas from Jaynagar in South 24 Parganas district.
He was brought to the KMCH after two other state-run hospitals allegedly refused him admission.
"He was under treatment for typhoid at a private hospital in Barasat (in North 24 Parganas district) for the last fortnight. He was not a Covid-19 patient. Two hospitals refused him admission and then we brought him here (KMCH)," claimed Ruidas' cousin.
Even at the KMCH, he was made to wait for long and by the time the doctors came he already died, he said.
An elderly woman, a resident of Baharampur in Murshidabad district, succumbed inside the van in which she was brought to the KMCH by her daughter.
"We dont know if she was suffering from Covid-19, as she was never tested for the disease. She was having body ache and swollen feet. We did not get an ambulance to bring her here, and hired a car. But no one attended to my mother. Finally when someone came, she had already left us," her daughter said.
On Saturday, a Class XII student, who has been suffering from diabetes and tested positive for COVID-19, has died at the KMCH.
His family members had also alleged that he died mainly because of negligence.
Meanwhile, twenty-four more people died due to COVID-19 in West Bengal, taking the total number of such fatalities in the state to 956, the health department said on Monday.
According to the department, 1,435 fresh COVID-19 cases were reported from different districts of the state in the last 24 hours, pushing the infection tally to 31,448.
The number of active cases currently stands at 11,279.
Since Sunday, 10,359 samples have been tested for the virus, while 632 people were discharged from hospitals following their recovery.
Ten of the latest fatalities were reported from Kolkata, eight from North 24 Parganas, two each from Howrah and Hooghly and one each from South 24 Parganas and Paschim Medinipore districts.
Kolkata, with 418 fresh cases, continued to witness the highest number of infections in a day, followed by North 24 Parganas and Howrah recording 363 and 168 new cases, respectively.
South 24 Parganas reported 95 new cases, while 73 were recorded in Darjeeling, 56 in Malda and 49 cases were registered in Purba Burdwan.
The state's recovery rate has dipped to 61.09 per cent.
A senior official of deputy magistrate rank from Hooghly district, Debdutta Ray, died of COVID-19 at a private hospital in Sreerampore.
She had tested positive last week.