In death, four-month-old Kuheli Chakraborty exemplifies the negligent nonchalance of the healthcare system in West Bengal. Her epitaph can be as stark as that, And it scarcely makes any difference if that system is under the public or private sector; both can be equally heartless.

Across the divide, a sense of accountability has been a systemic casualty.

The death has occurred once again at Apollo Gleneagles, the swanky healthcare outfit off Kolkata’s EM Bypass.

Six days after the tragedy there is no response whatsoever from the government, amidst the hype over the West Bengal Clinical Establishments Act and the commission that had been put in place after the previous death in Apollo, the atrocious bills, and the vandalism at CMRI in the aftermath of a patient’s death.

Such totemic intervention brings cold comfort to the bereaved families.

This time, sad to reflect, the health department has chosen not to react, preoccupied as the leaders are with the inauguration of a new auditorium, the hi-falutin platitudes on Civil Services Day, not to forget the chief minister’s visit to Odisha that had political and religious overtones.

In the event, a probe into Kuheli’s death is yet to be commissioned. Despite the heartrending tragedy, her mother drew a blank on her visit to Swasthya Bhavan, where a very senior officer (Director of Health Services) was not present at noon.

Reports suggest that other worthies were similarly insensitive. In desperation, the distraught woman has sought an appointment with the chief minister.

The system as a whole is awaiting a nod from on high before the state puts its shoulder to the wheel, if at all.

The setting up of a three-member committee by Apollo does not inspire confidence; it knows the kind of report that will be palatable to the management.

The bare facts are simply stated, and these have not been disputed by the hospital authorities. They were given a day’s deadline by the health department to furnish the report; we do not know yet whether it has been filed. What we do know is that the infant was in need of a colonoscopy for which she was allegedly administered an overdose of anaesthesia.

Kuheli’s condition was aggravated as she was made to languish without food on April 17 and 18.

As the colonoscopy was repeatedly postponed for no stated reason, two successive cardiac arrests drove her to death in one of Kolkata’s “super-speciality” hospitals.

There is a fundamental question too many and both the hospital management and the government need to clear the air.

A police force drawn from four police stations, forming a cordon sanitaire around Apollo, was admittedly necessary to protect the establishment from vandalism.

Yet it chimes oddly with the hideous reality within.