A blame game has begun at the Patna Medical College and Hospital after an operation table, which the hospital bought just a fortnight ago for around Rs 2.5 lakh, broke on Saturday when doctors were about to conduct a surgery.

The hospital administration claims that the operation theatre (OT) assistants - who do work such as passing instruments to doctors during surgery and also sterilising the equipment pre and post surgery - are behind the incident and has initiated action against them. A section of senior doctors, however, believe that hospital bought an inferior quality operation table.

Saturday's incident occurred at OT No. 4 - the same OT where The Telegraph had reported last month that surgeries had to be cancelled after the old operation table malfunctioned.

After Saturday's incident - the surgery was stopped - all the eight assistants at OT number 4 were on Monday transferred to the ear nose and throat (ENT) OT.

A senior doctor at the hospital, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said he couldn't buy the hospital administration's argument that OT assistants had interfered with the operation table.

"Tell me what they will get by interfering with the parts of the OT? Do you mean to say that they wanted the patient to fall during surgery? I can't believe this statement," the doctor said. "The OT assistants have told us that the traction part of the table broke off when they were adjusting the patient and doctors were present during that time. How can it happen that they interfered with the OT table in front of doctors?"

The transfer of all the eight OT assistants had greatly affected the work of OT number 4, the doctor said.

"Those OT assistants were assisting the orthopaedic surgeons since a long time. They had learned the job but now that new OT assistants would assist doctors, doctors would face problems as they would have to train them first. This morning, OT assistants were reluctant to work in various OTs. We somehow got them to work. We had received instructions from the hospital administration to keep the OTs running at any cost. After all, poor patients would have to bear the cost," said the doctor.

Another senior doctor, who also spoke did not wish to be identified, said the hospital had purchased the OT table on emergency basis and there was a possibility that it was of inferior quality.

"Many of our colleagues have raised the question on the quality of the OT table but they haven't raised it with the hospital administration," the doctor said. "OT tables with traction are available for between Rs 80,000 and Rs 10 lakh. The hospital is learned to have purchased the table at a cost of Rs 2.5 lakh but who knows whether it was really worth Rs 2.5 lakh or it was worth Rs 80,000? Earlier also, many instrument purchase-related scams were reported at the hospital after which doctors who were said to be involved in the scam were transferred to other hospital. Everyone is talking about the role of OT assistants but it has to be probed whether the OT table was of good quality or not."

Hospital superintendent Lakhendra Prasad, however, said OT assistants were involved in the incident.

"How can this happen in the same OT again and again? They must have some role in it," he said.

Hospital deputy superintendent Deepak Tandon, too, said that prima facie it seemed that someone had interfered with the OT table. "I had gone to check the OT table on the instructions of superintendent sir and I found that some parts had been interfered with. It was very much clear. Somebody has intentionally done this. As far as questions on the quality of OT table is concerned, we bought the table on the recommendation of the orthopaedic department doctors, who conduct surgeries in that OT. How can anyone blame us that we purchased an inferior quality OT table?"

Hospital sources, however said the table was of a local company and that the hospital is going to purchase a new OT table from some big-brand company.