Islampur, Feb. 14: The subdivisional hospital here has a single syringe for all patients and a Group D staff to administer the injections.

Protests have been of little use to stop the practice that has spawned the fear of contracting AIDS among patients.

Written complaints have been placed before the subdivisional officer of Islampur and the only hope for the hundreds of patients who visit the institution each day is that hospital superintendent Jayanta Sanyal has promised to look into the allegations.

Altaf Hossain of Chopra police station area had come to the hospital for dental treatment on January 25. He had been asked by the attending dentist of the out patients? department to take a tetanus injection.

But what he saw made him shudder. ?There was this Group D staff who went from one person to the other refilling the same syringe and administering the injections,? he said. ?The staff even shouted at me for asking him to use a fresh syringe.?

Sanyal said there was no shortage of syringes in the hospital and that he would ?look into the matter?.

Islampur branch secretary of the Indian Red Cross Society Bandhan Das said a section of corrupt hospital staff sold medicines and injections to nearby pharmacies.?