Patna, Jan. 30: A 60-year-old college teacher brought to the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) this morning following acute chest pain died after he was allegedly left unattended as the authorities insisted on finishing registration formalities — prolonged by a slowing printer — before beginning treatment.

Family members of Ram Iqbaal Tiwari, a professor of Pali at GV College in Ramgarh, Kaimur, said he was left unattended at the hospital for over 30 minutes after he was brought there around 11.30am and alleged that critical minutes were wasted in completing the admission procedures.

Medical experts say the initial 15-20 minutes are crucial in case of a massive heart attack, which is what doctors The Telegraph spoke to say Tiwari appeared to have suffered. The hospital has denied the allegations and said that Tiwari was “brought dead”.

Tiwari, who stayed on rent in Ashianangar, had complained of severe chest pain and restlessness around 11.20am and was rushed to IGIMS, a distance of about 3km. His family members said instead of attending to Tiwari, the hospital officials insisted on the admission formalities.

Worse, they alleged, there was no stretcher available to carry the patient to the emergency ward.

“Shockingly, there was no stretcher available to take my uncle from the vehicle to the emergency ward. We requested some of the hospital staff to help us carry him to the emergency ward, but no one came forward and he kept lying in our car. As there was just another male relative with me, we tried to lift him on our shoulders but since he was of a heavy build, we could not carry him properly and he fell on the ground,” said a distraught Abhinav Tripathi, a nephew of Tiwari.

His uncle, Abhinav said, looked critical as he was breathing heavily and was in need of immediate medical attention.

Abhinav added that as the staff insisted that doctors could only attend to the patient after registration formalities were over, he approached the emergency registration counter.

“There, I was told that it could not be done before at least 30 minutes as the printer was very slow. I felt helpless and did not know what to do. I requested a security guard to look for a stretcher somewhere so that we could take him inside the hospital. However, he returned, saying he could not find any,” Abhinav added.

“We somehow took him (Tiwari) to the emergency ward and pleaded with doctors to attend to him. After repeated pleas, sometime between 12noon and 12.05pm, a doctor checked his heartbeat and pulse and said my uncle had died about 10 minutes ago. This incident shows how lives are still so cheap in the regime of a government which cannot stop bragging about the so-called development it has brought to the state,” said Abhinav.

The hospital authorities said the patient was brought dead to the hospital. “Any death that happens in our hospital is sad and we try to provide the best facilities to every patient, as per available resources. However, in case of this particular patient, my doctors have told me that he might have been dead by the time he was brought to the hospital,” said Dr Arun Kumar, the director of IGIMS.

He also refuted allegations that no stretchers were available. “There are 35-40 stretchers available at the hospital. While there might be a shortage of stretcher boys during morning hours, there is no dearth of stretchers, which are lined up outside the emergency ward and attendants of patients can use them. This is absurd. How are the family members of the patient alleging that they could not find a stretcher to carry the patient?” the director asked.

He said the procedure to get a patient admitted before he was treated upon by a doctor was an administrative compulsion. “However, in emergency cases, treatment and registration processes proceed together. This is a technical issue and we have to stick by it,” Kumar said.

Emergency services at Patna Medical College and Hospital and Nalanda Medical College and Hospital are only marginally better. Superintendents of the institutions, however, asserted there was no dearth of stretchers or trolleys. In most cases, emergency patients are immediately attended to while registration formalities are in progress, they added.