City hospitals waterlogged due to night-long deluge
The Statesman | 24 September 2025Last time in 1978, Kolkata had recorded maximum rainfall.
Today, nine deaths were reported allegedly due to electrocutions in different parts of the city so far.
Normal healthcare services were disrupted after emergency wards, outdoor services etc in many government and private hospitals’ complexes remained submerged.
Emergency ward at Peerless Hospital, a premier private healthcare facility along the EM Bypass, was seen flooded with rainwater.
A video circulated showing how rainwater flooded the hospital’s emergency department soon after the hospital staff opened its door. It became viral on social media platforms showing the rain-ravaged situation in premier healthcare units in the city.
The outdoor patient department (OPD) clinic in the gynaecology and maternity department at the SSKM Hospital as well as Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research (IPGME&R), eastern India’s premier government teaching hospital cum research centre for post graduate medical education, remained closed today because of knee-deep water inside the OPD unit in the ground floor.
Around 15 indoor patients in the waterlogged ground floor in the department were shifted to elsewhere in the third-storied gynaecology and maternity building at SSKM.
The X-ray machine at the state-run National Medical College Hospital was found lying in a waterlogged room on the ground floor of the hospital building.
Patients’ care services in the X-ray unit were disrupted badly because the machine could not work.
Several areas inside the Medical College Hospital at College Street also got inundated. Water pumps in front of the laboratory unit inside the premier teaching hospital were also pressed into service to drain out the water.
Many areas inside the several other hospitals like R G Kar Medical College and Hospital and N R S Medical College and Hospital went under water because of heavy rains.
Considering the situation in government hospitals in the city, senior officials of the health department at Swasthya Bhaban sat on a meeting to discuss safety and security of patients and provide normal healthcare services without disruptions.
A senior official in the health department said that waterlogging was reported in different hospitals and Kolkata Municipal Corporation in coordination with local administrations in respective hospitals has already pumped out water from many hospitals.
