In the nearly three months that junior doctors at R G Kar Hospital in Kolkata struck work to protest against the August 9 rape and murder of their colleague, services at the premier state-run hospital were severely paralysed, with patient footfall down by half and major surgeries down 91%, shows patient data between July and October.
On August 9, the body of the junior doctor, who was raped and murdered allegedly by a civic volunteer with Kolkata Police, was found in a seminar hall on the fourth floor of the hospital. What followed were protests by junior doctors seeking a law for the safety of their fraternity and the removal of top police and health department officials. While the government gave in to some of these demands, the faceoff continued with some starting a hunger strike.
On Monday, after a meeting with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the junior doctors announced a withdrawal of their strike but said the “movement will go on”.
Over the last three months, as the doctors’ and government’s faceoff continued, patient care at RG Kar, the epicentre of the protests, took a big hit.
Data accessed by The Indian Express shows that while RG Kar saw a daily average of 5,106 patients in the out-patient department and 256 in the in-patient department in July, the numbers for October fell to 2,362 (down 53%) and 122 (down 52%), respectively. Since July, the lowest footfall in the OPD was in August, when merely 2,044 patients walked into the OPD.
According to hospital authorities, in the week between August 1 and 8, a total of 23,000 patients — a daily average of 2,875 — visited the hospital’s OPDs. However, the patient count in the OPD fell to nearly 100 after the August 9 rape and murder, and fell to zero on the morning after August 14-15, when a mob attacked the protesters and vandalised the hospital.
From August 22 — when the new principal Dr Manas Bandopadhyay took over — until the end of that month, approximately 900 patients visited the hospital daily.
Dr Bandopadhyay told The Indian Express, “Patient visits have gradually picked up. As of October 18, the daily footfall has reached 3,995 patients. Following the deployment of CISF security from August last week and the hospital’s announcement of enhanced safety measures, patient visits have gradually resumed.”
A senior official in the Health Department, however, admitted that the hospital has a long way to go before patient confidence is fully restored. “If you go through the numbers for IPD and major surgeries, you will see that even after the junior doctors returned to work (on October 5) and despite all this security, the confidence of the patients is still low. The crime of August 9 and the vandalism of August 14 have definitely affected the hospital.”
Like in most hospitals, the 700-odd junior doctors at RG Kar form the backbone of the hospital. Emergency Medical Officer Tapas Pramanick said, “Junior doctors play a crucial role in OPDs and IPDs, including emergency and planned surgeries. They are very crucial to the running of these patient services.”
Though senior doctors pitched in by working overtime, the lower patient count in the OPD and IPD had a domino effect on laboratory services and major surgeries, which too fell drastically in this period.
While R G Kar’s labs registered a daily average of 2,467 tests in July, that fell to 928 in August and further dropped to 518 in September and to the lowest — 417 — in October so far. Major surgeries, another indicator of patient confidence, too took a hit in the weeks since August 9 — from a daily average of 48 in July to a low of 7 in October so far.
While the patient count is still far from pre-August levels, the Emergency building and OPD continue to be overwhelmed with a constant influx of patients. R G Kar Hospital, one of the oldest and biggest referral hospitals in the city, caters to patients from Kolkata and districts in South Bengal.
Since the August 9 incident and the protests, there has been a substantial police presence at the entrance, though entry into the hospital remains unrestricted. The CISF is in charge of security at key areas such as the trauma ward, the Emergency administrative building, and other critical departments.
Authorities said the hospital was gradually getting back on track. A senior official at R G Kar Medical College said, “Except the crime scene and the room opposite it, which was demolished, we have got permission from both the CBI and the police for renovation and restoration work. We have already installed 95% of CCTV cameras and started work on constructing wash rooms and rest rooms as per the guidelines of the Supreme Court. However, work on the Emergency building that was vandalised on August 14 is still pending because it was planned that damages will be collected from those who are accused of this incident. So, we are estimating the total cost of the renovation. Once we get a go-ahead from the court, we will start necessary work to renovate the Emergency building. Until then, Emergency services are being held in adjacent departments.”
Her leg plastered, Anjura Bibi, in her mid-thirties, struggles to get into an autorickshaw as she heads home to Rajarhat, around 10 km away, after a post-surgery consultation.
Anjura had met with an accident on August 2 and was scheduled to undergo an operation on her leg on August 11. But the events of the last few months meant that she was finally operated upon only in the first week of October. “We are poor and can’t afford treatment in private hospitals. On August 16, my husband brought me here but things looked so bad here we decided to go back home. Finally, I had an operation in the first week of October… the doctors have been very cooperative,” she says.