Ten days after he was dumped in the emergency ward of Medical College and Hospital (MCH), Satyendra Mohan Roychowdhury had a full meal and received treatment on Sunday.

The 74-year-old widower, who lives alone, suffered a hairline fracture in the left pelvic bone on March 20 after being hit by a taxi in BBD Bag. The retired state government employee lay on an observation bed in the hospital without treatment or food till Saturday evening, when the authorities admitted him after The Telegraph enquired about him.

“I had a filling meal after days,” said Roychowdhury, lying on his bed in the casualty block on Sunday morning. He had toast and milk for breakfast and rice, lentil and vegetable curry for lunch. The authorities also gave him painkillers, a set of new clothes and a pelvic band to support the fractured bone.

“I am feeling much better today and the pain has subsided to an extent,” added Roychowdhury.

His ordeal seems to be far from over, though the physical discomforts have been taken care of. Roychowdhury has been leading a lonely life since his wife died in 1998. The couple were childless.

Roychowdhury’s relatives live in Bangladesh and are not in touch with him. A help cooks for him in his dilapidated house in Naktala.

“Lying in the hospital, I miss my wife more than ever. All the patients in the ward have visitors but no one will come to see me,” said Roychowdhury.

Some policemen posted at the hospital, who had given the septuagenarian food while he was lying in the emergency ward, visited him on Sunday.

“Roychowdhury has been administered painkillers and is better now,” said A.N. Biswas, the deputy medical superintendent of the hospital.

The widower had met with the accident on his way back from Writers’ Buildings, where he had gone to sort out problems with his monthly pension of Rs 3,000. A passerby carried him to the MCH’s emergency ward.

The hospital authorities did not take in Roychowdhury as they don’t admit patients with a hairline hip fracture and because he did not have any relative to sign the papers and look after him in the ward.

But Roychowdhury could not leave the hospital — he could not even go to the bathroom on his own. He begged for food from police officers, hospital staff and patients.