Despite chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s efforts to improve the state health care system the stark reality of patients being forced to fend for themselves for even the barest minimum facilities became evident on Thursday at two major state hospitals of the city ~ SSKM and RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.

A man was seen carrying his 85 year-old mother in his arms after the SSKM Hospital authorities failed to provide a stretcher for the old woman. He was coming out of the Emergency OPD block of the premier state- run hospital. Pain and suffering were writ large on the face of the miserable octogenarian woman.

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When a reporter asked him why he was carrying his mother in his arms to the ambulance instead of shifting her on a stretcher, an angry Rajesh said : “We didn’t get a trolley, that’s why.” It was 1 p.m. and the blazing sun was sapping the energy of the man when this happened. Too many people were found waiting for a trolley in the hospital premises.

Another patient, who could barely walk, was found dragging himself within the hospital premises. His relatives were seen providing physical support. Several other people were found waiting for trolleys. Some of them waited with their patients, while others lifted their ailing relatives and carried them to different departments. “We have to leave for Midnapore. It’s quite far. We cannot wait for hours for one trolley,” said Shovan Maiti, whose old father was the patient.

“This happens when too many patients crowd outside the Emergency ward. That is when scarcity of stretchers occurs”, said a doctor who assists in the Emergency ward of SSKM. A patient’s relative said : “It’s not possible to wait all the time. When an emergency patient is in dire need of a stretcher, the patient’s family cannot wait for an indefinite period for a stretcher to take him to a doctor. The patient may die while waiting.”

The scene was not much different at R G Kar where an accident victim was seen being carried by her relatives to the Emergency ward. The relatives pointed out to this reporter a shocking spectacle ~ a trolley being used to carry bricks instead of a patient outside the Cardiovascular Science unit.

The hospital superintendent Dr Suddhodhan Batabyal said : “I am not going to say anything on this matter”. However, the vice principal Dr Prabir Kumar Mukhopadhyay denied there was any crisis for trolleys and claimed the trolley carrying bricks could be owned by a contractor working in the hospital.