Patient jumps off 8th floor of hospital in Kolkata, dies

Nearly two hours of desperate attempts to rescue the depressed patient, who somehow managed his way to the eighth-floor cornice of the hospital failed, as he jumped and died while undergoing treatment at 7:30 pm on Saturday evening.

Kolkata: A 33-year-old man died after he jumped off the eighth floor of a hospital at the busy Mullick Bazar Crossing in central Kolkata at 7.30 pm on Saturday. The patient was identified as Sujit Adhikari and he breathed his last after a six-and-a-half-hour battle with life. After fatal fall he did not regain his consciousness. The doctors tried hard to revive him by keeping him on a ventilator but in vain.

Nearly two hours of desperate attempts to rescue the depressed patient by the fire services department personnel, who somehow managed his way to the eighth-floor of the Institute of Neurosciences, had failed as he finally jumped. He suffered critical injuries to his skull, waist, rib cage and left hand. Adhikari sat there for nearly one-and-a-half hours on the cornice of the hospital building. He jumped from there and hit the cornice on multiple floors and fell to the ground.

He was supposed to be discharged later in the day. Hospital sources said that the patient had a scuffle with the ward boys, following which he slipped out of the window of the eighth floor of the hospital and sat on the cornice there. The fire services department reached the spot with a hydraulic ladder and made desperate attempts to rescue him.

After this incident, the role of the hospital authorities and the failure of police and fire brigade personnel are being questioned. The Medical Service Centre has demanded a thorough investigation into the incident and severe punishment for the culprits. Kolkata District Committee Secretary of the Medical Service Centre Dr Nilratan Naiya said in a statement, "A neurological patient admitted to a hospital in Kolkata on Saturday fell from the 8th-floor cornice of the hospital and was seriously injured. He came out through the window of the ward and sat on the cornice for about half an hour."

"The fire brigade and the disaster management team, despite having about an hour-and-a-half, showed how inadequate their activities and infrastructure were. How a patient got out of the hospital ward on the cornice has brought the role of hospital authorities into question. We demand a thorough probe into this tragic incident and punishment for the guilty officers," Dr Naiya added.