An affected worker in Dheklapara. (A Choudhury)

Alipurduar, Aug. 28: Two children have died and 20 others have developed symptoms like vomiting, fever and stomach ache in a closed garden over the past one week.

Dheklapara Tea Estate, located in the Birpara-Madarihat block, 77km from Alipurduar town, is closed since March 2006. The garden with nearly 650 workers is being run by the operating and maintenance committee (OMC), which has been selling tealeaves to buyers and paying Rs 32 as daily wages to a worker.

The nearest hospital is in Birpara, 12km away. The garden workers have to cross two hilly rivers to reach there.

On Wednesday, four-year-old Mohit Tati died after he started vomiting. A request to Birpara State General Hospital to send an ambulance to the garden went unheeded, said Bishnu Tati, the convener of the OMC in the garden.

Ashok Tati, an 11-day-old boy, also died in the same manner a day earlier. Two workers, who need immediate hospitalisation, could not be taken to Birpara as the ambulance did not come. At least 18 others have developed symptoms like vomiting, fever and stomach ache for the past seven days. No doctor has treated them, Bishnu said.

Sujan Sarkar, the block medical officer of health of Madarihat, admitted that two years ago the health department had decided that if a worker from a closed tea garden asked for an ambulance, the vehicle must be sent there.

Bishnu said he had contacted the hospital superintendent yesterday. “He asked us to talk to the ward master who sent us to the driver of a private ambulance. The driver said he did not go as the previous bills were not cleared by the hospital.”

Joydeb Barman, the hospital superintendent, denied the charges. “Our ambulance driver is ill. We had hired another ambulance to shift a patient to Siliguri yesterday,” he said.

Backward classes minister Jogesh Burman said: “I am surprised to know the patients are yet to be shifted to the hospital. I have instructed the block development officer of Madarihat accordingly.”