Tension gripped the West Bengal government-run RG Kar Medical College & Hospital in Kolkata on Thursday, November 14, as the ceiling of an operation theatre within the premises collapsed. Fortunately, as IANS reports, the operation theatre was not in use at the time, and no one was injured.
The collapse has added fuel to ongoing controversies surrounding the hospital, which has been under national scrutiny in recent months. The institution faced public outrage in August after the tragic rape and murder of a junior doctor on its premises and is currently the subject of a central agency probe into alleged financial irregularities.
Doctors at the hospital have linked the ceiling collapse to long-standing neglect in infrastructure upkeep, exacerbated by alleged irregularities during the tenure of former principal Dr Sandip Ghosh. IANS reports that Dr Ghosh has been accused of bypassing the state’s Public Works Department (PWD) to hire private contractors of his choosing for maintenance work.
A junior doctor reportedly expressed frustration over the lack of action, saying, “The condition of the operation theatre whose ceiling collapsed was pathetic for quite some time. Despite repeated requests made to the hospital authorities to carry out thorough repair and maintenance work, the latter neglected the issue.”
Another doctor raised alarms about the broader condition of the hospital’s infrastructure — specifically the medical rooms in the surgery department — which is, reportedly, ‘quite pathetic’. “Similar accidents in the future cannot be ruled out unless thorough repair and maintenance work is carried out immediately,” he said.
