Behrampore, Sept. 11: A newborn died today after allegedly falling off a hospital bed in Murshidabad, triggering allegations that the on-duty doctor and nurse left the mother unattended during delivery and stayed put in their quarters next door despite appeals from a relative.

Habal Khan, the baby boy’s father, said he had brought his expectant wife Sabera Bibi to the Shaktipur hospital in Rejinagar around 5am.

“I brought my wife to the hospital for delivery and the doctor on duty admitted her to the women’s ward. But after her admission, both the doctor and the nurse went to their quarters,” Habal said.

A doctor’s post is lying vacant at the 15-bed hospital.

After they left, only two Group D employees remained in the hospital, he added.

Around 5.30am, Sabera went into labour but there was no doctor or nurse around. The employees stay in quarters around 50 metres from the hospital.

“I asked a Group D employee to call the doctor. Instead, he told me to fetch the doctor and nurse from their quarters,” Sabera’s mother-in-law Arifa Bibi said.

“I ran to the quarters and asked for the doctor and nurse,” she said.

When Arifa returned, she found that Sabera had already delivered and the newborn was lying on the floor. “I picked up the baby whose umbilical cord was still intact. He was breathing but bleeding from both ears. The baby’s limbs were moving,” she said.

The doctor, Debashis Saha, and nurse Tapashi Das came to the hospital around 6.15am. Saha apparently told the relatives that the baby had been born dead.

“But I told the doctor that I had seen the baby alive. I said it was because of his negligence that my daughter was compelled to deliver the baby on the bed and the baby fell on the ground,” Arifa said.

Habal then telephoned other villagers. Within half an hour, around 100 villagers arrived and began ransacking the office and the outpatients department.

The villagers also locked in the doctor and the nurse.

District chief medical officer of health S. S. Siraj said the doctor and nurse were supposed to stay at the hospital till 8am.

An inquiry has been ordered and a post-mortem would be conducted.