Calcutta: The health department has sought an explanation from the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital regarding an allegation that a four-year-old boy with a coin stuck in his throat had been denied immediate surgery and was referred to SSKM Hospital.

The department will also investigate a similar allegation against NRS Medical College and Hospital.

Arghya Biswas, a resident of Gangnapur in Nadia's Ranaghat sub-division, had swallowed a coin around noon on Saturday and gasped for breath for 15 hours till the coin was surgically taken out at SSKM Hospital.

"The child is recovering and is likely to be discharged on Tuesday," said Arunabha Sengupta, head of the ENT department at SSKM.

Metro had on Monday reported about the ordeal he and his family went through.

Relatives - the boy's mother died a year ago and father works at a restaurant in Bangalore - had earlier taken Arghya to three hospitals in North 24-Parganas and Nadia but doctors there said they lacked infrastructure and specialists to perform the procedure to extract the coin.

The College of Medicine and JNM Hospital in Kalyani, the third hospital the group went to after Bongaon Gramin Hospital and Ranaghat Sub-divisional Hospital, referred the boy to NRS hospital.

Relatives said a doctor at NRS said a surgeon who could perform the procedure to take out the coin would only be available on Monday morning and referred the boy to Calcutta Medical College.

According to relatives, doctors at Calcutta Medical College agreed to admit the patient but said a surgeon would not be available before Sunday morning. They allegedly told the relatives to try their luck at SSKM Hospital.

The head of the ENT department at Calcutta Medical College, Ramanuj Sengupta, has denied the allegation. "Doctors of my department had written 'immediate admission' on the prescription. We don't know why they took away the patient," he had told this newspaperon Sunday.

"We are taking the allegation seriously," an official of the health department said. "The head of the ENT department of Calcutta Medical College and Hospital came to Swasthya Bhawan on Monday and denied the charge. He has been asked to give a written reply," he said.

"The allegations levelled by the boy's family against NRS Medical College and Hospital will be probed, too. We will also try to find out whether the hospitals in North 24-Parganas and Nadia had the required equipment and specialist doctors when the child was taken there."