Hemanta Lodh and Sunil Let lie under a tree in the SSKM compound on Monday morning. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

On Monday’s hot and humid afternoon, Hemanta Lodh lay under the shade of a tree — from one of its branches hung what looked like a bottle of saline whose needle was pierced into a vein of his right arm.

To the right was the emergency department of Bengal’s biggest referral hospital, SSKM, which couldn’t make space for him because it would have had to put him on the floor as no beds were vacant.

More important, a Medical Council of India (MCI) team was visiting the hospital and it could not be shown what is otherwise a routine sight: patients lying on the floor.

Hemanta and his friend Sunil Let, lay under the tree within SSKM’s boundary walls, with injuries to the chest, waist and legs. Hemanta had bandages below the knee on one leg and on the thigh of the other. Both of Sunil’s thighs were bandaged.

They were turned out of the hospital at 8.30am when the nurses on duty and the ward boys told their relatives to take them away. “First, they told us no bed was available and we would be kept on the floor. Then they asked us to leave the ward,” said Sunil.

An SSKM official said: “They could have been admitted and put on the floor but since the MCI team was on a visit, it would not have been proper to do so.”

As word spread of Hemanta and Sunil lying under a tree amid dark rumours of their families being approached by a tout for admission to a nearby nursing home, a group of Trinamul Congress supporters began a protest. TV channels picked up the story and soon the duo, who had met with a road accident along with their friend Anirban Majumdar while travelling on a motorcycle on Sunday night, were on the screens.

The hospital’s medical superintendent, Ashok Ghosh, stepped in and the two were admitted to the orthopaedic department at 1pm and were, surprisingly, found beds.

The MCI team was in the hospital from 11am to 3.30pm, but did not visit the orthopaedic wing. But if the fear of being caught out by the team prompted the hospital to refuse admission to the two patients from Birbhum’s Nalhati, the effort backfired with the incident becoming public.

Unhappy with facilities at the hospital, the team members would return to Delhi with Hemanta and Sunil’s travails fresh in mind and could make enquiries when they visit the hospital again on Tuesday. On their report hinges permanent sanction for the hospital’s MBBS course.

The three friends, all first-year students of a Rampurhat college, were taken to a hospital there but were referred to Calcutta hospitals. Anirban was taken to Medical College and Hospital but his injuries were not serious. Hemanta and Sunil were brought around 4.30am to SSKM where the doctors did a CT scan.