Nitai Adhikary’s widow Uma weeps as she recounts how the sweepers in a Medical College and Hospital ward refused to help her carry out her husband’s body because he was an AIDS patient. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

The ordeal of Nitai Adhikary, an AIDS patient thrown out of a state-run hospital in the city on Tuesday, continued even after his death on Sunday.

The 32-year-old goldsmith died at 9.15am on Sunday, but Group D employees of Medical College and Hospital refused to touch the body, reportedly because the patient had been suffering from AIDS.

Adhikary was readmitted to the hospital on Wednesday, a day after he was allegedly thrown out for refusing to bribe a ward boy. He died hours after he was shifted to the casualty block (top) from the medicine ward.

“I was alone when he died and did not know what to do. I asked the sweepers to help me remove the body, but they turned down my plea,” said Nitai’s wife Uma.

She then called an NGO that had helped Nitai after he was “dragged” out of the hospital. A member of the NGO arrived soon and contacted the ward master’s office.

“The ward master on duty told me the body would be released around 1pm,” he recalled. “Around 1.15pm, he allowed us to take the body and asked a dom sitting nearby to help us. But the dom refused.”

The NGO worker also requested a few sweepers to help them, “but they said they would not touch the body of an AIDS patient”.

The NGO worker then wrapped the body in a plastic sheet, put it on a trolley and wheeled it out of the building himself. Other patients in the ward echoed what Uma and the NGO worker had said. “He was doing everything alone. The ward boys even refused to give him a stretcher,” alleged a patient.

“Sweepers do not carry bodies. It’s the duty of the doms. We will investigate the matter and find out what exactly happened,” said a senior hospital official.

“It’s unfortunate but true that despite year-long awareness campaigns in hospitals and health centres, superstitions about AIDS remain entrenched in the minds of several employees,” said an official of the National AIDS Control Organisation. “The issue will be discussed at a review meeting soon.”

Adhikary’s funeral rites were performed at the Nimtala burning ghat by his 10-year-old son Mahesh, who was brought from their village in Ghatal, West Midnapore, by neighbours.

Nitai, who worked in Calcutta, was brought to Medical College and Hospital with respiratory distress and other ailments last Tuesday. After the resident medical officer admitted him on the floor, a “one-armed ward boy” told his relatives that he could arrange a bed for Rs 200.

The family refused to pay, after which the ward boy and his colleagues allegedly threw Adhikary out.