The North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH) will use ‘Nishchay Yan,’ a free ambulance service for expectant women and sick infants, to ferry deceased patients.

NBMCH patient welfare committee chairman Gautam Deb today said that since the NBMCH did not have its own hearse, the 14 such vehicles at the hospital will be used to carry the dead belonging to economically weaker sections. Mr Deb, who is also the Siliguri mayor, said two hearses owned by civic bodies will be tagged with the NBMCH and the Siliguri District Hospital for this purpose.

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“We want to create a fool proof mechanism. The NBMCH has 14 Nischay Yans, which are used to carry expectant women and sick babies, but during emergency, we also send the bodies and we will continue this. We have sent 14 bodies, of which maximum were infants, recently to different areas in the state for those who were unable to afford the expenses. The Nischay Yan will cater to the people who are not able to pay the expenses,” Mr Deb said after a meeting of the committee at the NBMCH.

“The NBMCH will bear the fuel costs. This apart, the Siliguri Municipal Corporation has two hearses, which will be tagged with the NBMCH and the Siliguri District Hospital. The hospitals will provide fuel prices. At the same time, the Darjeeling district magistrate is taking an initiative to arrange a hearse through corporate social responsibility, while I am also trying to get one more hearse,” he added.

The hearse issue at the NBMCH has hit headlines after a migrant worker of Kaliaganj in North Dinajpur district, Asim Deb Sharma, allegedly travelled in a bus covering around 200 km with his six-month-old son’s body in a travel bag on Sunday as he failed pay Rs 8,000 demanded by a private ambulance at the NBMCH. Mr Deb Sharma alleged that he had not received any cooperation at the hospital. Mr Deb said the incident was unfortunate.

“Such incidents have never occurred at the NBMCH, especially in the last 12 years. But it should not have happened. There might have been a gap. We are taking adequate steps to avoid such incidents. From now on, there will be monitoring from the wards,” he added.

Building handover deadline

Mr Deb today served a fresh deadline of 22 May to complete all the necessary works to hand over a three-storied NBMCH building to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)- National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) for the proposed model rural health research unit (MRHRU).

Mr Deb said the NBMCH had missed the previous deadline as the building was supposed to be handed over on 15 May.

“We want the infrastructure to be developed at the earliest. A heap of documents have piled up on the second floor of the building. The documents are valuable. An assistant superintendent is supervising the work. We had earlier decided to hand over the building on 15 May. I have asked them to work on a war footing to meet the date. The number of persons engaged in the process has been doubled. It will be readied on 22 May and we will inform the ICMR-NICED to be handed over on 23 May. We are very keen that the project comes up at the earliest. We do not want it to be extended to 2 June,” he said.

CCTV cameras

The NBMCH will install 20 more CCTV cameras around the maternity ward. Mr Deb said their purpose is to set up cameras in the whole campus.