Chakraborty (left) and Das (centre) at the hospital. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, Nov. 17: Of the 56 doctors posted at the district hospital here, only two were present today.

The revelation came as a shock to Malda district magistrate (DM) Chittaranjan Das and zilla parishad sabhadhipati Goutam Chakraborty, who had gone on a recce of the 500-bad hospital.

This is not all. Hospital superintendent Maniklal Das, who has been holding the post for the past 12 years, was conspicuous by his absence and so was the chief medical officer of health (CMOH) Radharaman Banik. Both Banik and the deputy CMOH (I) were out of station. According to existing rules, the CMOH is supposed to inform the DM and the sabhadhipati, who is also the chairman of the health committee, before he leaves station.

Though the hospital superintendent arrived later, his office, where the doctors are supposed to sign the attendance register at 9 am, was under lock and key when the officials visited it. More shock was in store when the DM entered the kitchen. He found gross discrepancies between the menu and the food served to patients. While super fine rice and 250 gm of bread is the prescribed quota for each patient everyday, the hospital serves them coarse rice and only 20 gm of bread.

The visiting officials were also told that since eggs were not available in the market, biscuits were being served instead. Das waited for more than half an hour to meet the supplier of food and then got hold of the rice and bread samples. While doing their rounds of the male and the female wards, and the gynaecology, medicine, paediatrics and surgery departments, the officials realised that “it was chaos everywhere”. At nine in the morning, there was only one doctor in the emergency.

The hospital superintendent, however, claimed that he had brought the existing problems to the notice of the district health authorities, but it had not been addressed.

Das said he would take up the matter with the health directorate. “I cannot allow this to continue,” the DM said.