An injured woman being removed in an ambulance to a Calcutta hospital. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

The sight of Pallab Chakraborty, 33, gasping for breath could have melted a stone, but not the staff at Sagar Dutta State General Hospital.

“We do not have an ICCU. We cannot admit patients who require intensive care,” ward master Alok Deb said.

Subrata Dutta, 28, another of those trapped in the Sodepur garments store that caught fire on Friday, was turned away despite his life hanging by a thread. An unidentified woman with acute respiratory distress was sent back, too.

Pallab and Subrata survived because their families wasted no more time and brought them to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The woman could not be traced.

It wasn’t any better at the other suburban hospitals and nursing homes, to which most of those who suffered carbon monoxide poisoning in the Sodepur garment store were first taken.

Battling for life, Raktima Ghosh, 27, lay on a shabby bed at Balaram Mandir Seva Pratisthan, in Khardah, for nearly two hours without proper medical attention before husband Sourav arranged for her to be shifted to Apollo Gleneagles. “They did not have the infrastructure to handle an emergency. They only gave her oxygen and a saline drip,” Sourav said.

Amritalal Saha, 40, an employee of the garments store, was curled up on the floor of Panihati Restorative Clinic for several hours with only oxygen support. “We took him to a nursing home later,” Krishna Saha, a relative, said.

Families and friends of some of the victims said the healthcare centres were not only ill-equipped, but also manned by unhelpful staff.

Chinmoy Das, searching for his friend Govinda Talapatra and wife Rekha, said no official would tell him where he could find the couple. “There was chaos everywhere. I wanted to know where my friend and his wife were but there was nobody to help me.”

After several hours, Das discovered that Govinda, 53, died shortly after being admitted to Panihati State General Hospital. Rekha, who had been taken to Balaram Mandir Seva Pratisthan, was later shifted to AMRI Hospital in Salt Lake.

Six of the 11 people admitted to Panihati State General Hospital died while the rest were referred to other hospitals. “This hospital lacks basic infrastructure and so family members of five of the injured took them elsewhere,” local CPM legislator Gopal Bhattacharya said.

Of them, Biswajit Samanta died on way to SSKM Hospital. Jayanta Sarkar, 40, and Nitai Biswas, 32, were admitted to SSKM’s respiratory care unit.