The hospital at Kalinga Nagar in Bhubaneswar Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Sept 15: Tension prevailed at Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital in Kalinga Nagar following the death of an intern.

Medical students and doctors went on a rampage on the campus and locked the main gate disrupting services for three hours.

Mitrabhanu Sai, 22, who studied MBBS in the same college, was doing his internship at the hospital for the last six months. He was from Balangir and was admitted to the hospital with complaints of sickle cell disease on Saturday. However, he died on Sunday night.

Sickle cell is an inherited, lifelong disease. People who have the disease are usually born with it. In such patients, normal round red cells take the shape of sickles. In sickle cell disease, the bone marrow cannot make new red blood cells fast enough to replace the dying ones.

Following the intern’s death, students and other doctors staged an agitation on the campus alleging negligence on the part of the authority. They also ransacked windows of the receptionist’s office.

“Though he was admitted to the hospital on Saturday, doctors did not attend to him properly,” said a student.

The agitation affected the service for nearly three hours. “My father was suffering from low blood pressure. As the hospital is close to our home at Bharatpur, I took him there, but we had to wait for two hours for medical attention and then decided to take him to another hospital,” said Sudarshan Sahu.

As the hospital caters to a number of people from nearby villages, a large number of patients had to wait till the service was restored.

The agitation was called off after police intervened.

“As soon as we got the information, we deployed one platoon of police at the hospital. The situation is under control,” said a police official.

The hospital authorities, however, denied the allegation of negligence.

“We did our best to save the patient,” said deputy medical superintendent of the hospital, Basant Kumar Pati.