Seventy-five-year-old Rajpati Devi, of Kharagpur, lies dead on the pavement outside Chittaranjan Cancer Research Institute, where she had been denied access from 8.30pm on Wednesday. Picture by Aranya Sen

Seventy-five-year-old Rajpati Devi of Kharagpur died on the streets of Calcutta early on Thursday, after being denied entry into a government-run hospital through the night.

The liver cancer patient died unattended after being referred by Nil Ratan Sircar (NRS) Medical College and Hospital to Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, where she was refused permission to even enter the premises.

“I kept pleading with the private security guards to let us speak to a doctor, but they did not even allow us to enter without a registration card,” alleged Rajpati Devi’s son Chandrama Prasad Sharma.

“My mother was lying on the pavement writhing in pain from 8.30pm, but the guards refused to budge. The pain just kept getting worse after midnight. When she fell silent around 4.30am, we realised she was dead,” said the 32-year-old, fighting back his tears.

Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, at Hazra, is run jointly by the central and state governments, with the Union health minister as chairman and the state health minister as vice-chairman.

“We have not received any complaint yet. I will get in touch with the institute director and ask for a report once we get the complaint,” state health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra told Metro late on Thursday.

The vice-chairman of the institute’s governing body added that the health department would “definitely look into the matter” once it received a formal complaint.

Chandrama, a medicine shop employee in Kharagpur, was too upset to file a formal complaint. “My mother was writhing in pain but I could not take her anywhere else as she had been referred here,” said the bereaved son, waiting for the post-mortem to be conducted before taking her back home for the last rites.

Rajpati Devi was referred to NRS by the Kharagpur sub-divisional hospital, where she was admitted on February 16. When she was brought to NRS around 5pm on Wednesday, the doctor on duty referred her to Chittaranjan “for better management”.

Registration of outdoor patients at Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute takes place between 9am and 11.30am. Rajpati Devi arrived at 8.30pm.

Institute director Jaydip Biswas blamed it on the NRS officials for referring the cancer patient so late on Wednesday. “They know we don’t have an emergency unit. They should have attended to the patient overnight and sent her here on Thursday morning.”

Biswas, however, admitted that it was “the moral responsibility” of the hospital to extend its services to an emergency patient who turns up without a registration card.

“It was very unfortunate that the doctors on duty did not even get to know that a patient was lying outside in the open.... We will carry out an inquiry and the guilty will be severely punished to set a precedent,” he added.

Ranjit Mullick, a security guard on duty at the institute on Thursday night, told Metro that they have “strict orders” not to let anyone in without a registration card.

The guards who had been on duty on Wednesday night could not be traced.

Samir Banerjee, the vice-president of the institute’s employees’ union, said the forum had repeatedly urged the authorities to start an emergency unit. Biswas, who assumed office as director a year ago, said the second campus coming up in Rajarhat would have an emergency wing.