Destination Death, penned by Aritra days before the suicide

Was Aritra Mukherjee (as he signed himself) destined to die lying on the floor of the medicine ward of Medical College and Hospital, while his friends were desperately trying to shift him?

According to the Medical College authorities, BR Singh Hospital, where the friends had wanted to shift Aritra, was hardly an alternative. No other hospital can match the human resources of Medical College, they said.

The delay in releasing Aritra, they emphasised, was ?usual?, as the rules had to be strictly followed.

The police, however, have a different theory.

Officers said that after Jorasanko police ? who are probing the Mukhopadhyays? suicide ? had issued a no-objection certificate, the authorities could well have released the patient and then informed Bowbazar thana (under whose jurisdiction the hospital falls).

That would have reduced the delay and ensured the best possible treatment for Aritra and his father.

?There was no delay on our part. The hospital authorities took time in carrying out the formalities,? said an assistant commissioner of police.

And it is this ?sudden love for rules? that has left Aritra?s friends shell-shocked.

?We could see him lying on the floor of the ward since morning,? said Arko Chakrabarty, Aritra?s friend from school. ?We did everything possible to have him shifted and even kept two ambulances ready. But the formalities came in the way. If the authorities were so concerned, why didn?t they organise an intensive therapeutic unit (ITU) or ventilators for the two??

Medical College deputy superintendent Amarendra Biswas, however, feels a ventilator would not have made much of a difference. ?As for ITU, it is for those who need round-the-clock monitoring.?

Director of medical education Jayshree Mitra asked: ?How many private hospitals have ventilators? And how many nursing homes would have admitted these critical patients? Only government hospitals treat such patients.?

Experts dealing with poisoning cases say it does make a difference if a patient is put under constant monitoring.

?When poison reaches the pre-synaptic receptors, there are complications. But even then, the patient can be subjected to forced alkaline dialysis before haemo-dialysis. Besides, since the doctor-nurse ratio in an ITU is better than in a general ward, the patient can be constantly monitored. This is crucial for dealing with arrhythmia,? says Sudarshan Chakrabarty of Sambhunath Pandit Hospital.