Patna stampede: Medical superintendent suspended, action against 7 doctors for being ‘unavailable’

Patna: Bihar government suspended the hospital superintendent of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) and took action against seven other doctors for allegedly remaining unavailable when stampede victims were brought there on October 3.

PMCH superintendent Lakhinder Prasad was suspended and its principal S N Sinha was given his duty as additional charge, health secretary Anand Kishore said.

Four doctors of assistant professor rank of surgery, urology and orthopaedics were transferred outside Patna, Kishore said.

Besides, the heads of department of orthopadics, surgery and urology were served show-cause notices, he said.

The suspension and other actions have been taken after the approval of chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and health minister Ramdhani Singh, he said.

Kishore said departmental inquiry would be carried against the doctors of the hospital.

Manjhi, during a surprise visit to PMCH on Sunday evening to meet Dussehra stampede victims, had found the doctors unavailable in the emergency ward, which also wore a filthy look. Besides, several medicines were said to be unavailable.

When Manjhi had sought to meet the hospital superintendent Lakhinder Prasad, he was not around.

Altogether, 33 people were killed and 29 injured in a stampede outside the Gandhi Maidan after the Dussehra festival on October 3.