Six people get stuck in hospital elevator in Mumbai before finally being rescued by a doctor; hospital shrugs off blame and says can’t help it if backup used by operation theatre
The six people were rescued by a doctor who used his presence of mind to help them, as seen in this video grab
The BMC should consider itself lucky that when the power at a civic hospital went out suddenly and trapped six people in an elevator, one of those was not a patient in need of immediate attention. In an egregious episode that highlights the mismanagement of BMC-funded civic hospitals, at 10 am yesterday, when Sant Muktabai Municipal Hospital lost its power supply, neither did the mandatory back-up kick in, nor did anybody apart from a few doctors, nurses or Class 4 employees attempt to help the six people — including three children and two women — trapped in the elevator for over 40 minutes. Surprisingly, even the fire brigade was not called in to aid the rescue; and there was no electrician on call to tackle the situation, despite claims to the contrary by the hospital. Instead, the supervisor tried to pass the buck and shift blame on Reliance, the power supplier.
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Where’s the help?
“This could have been fatal if an emergency patient had been stuck in the elevator for this long. We tried to open the gate after hearing the relatives of patients shouting,” said a nurse who helped the trapped. Normally, in hospitals, during a power outage, the lifts are supposed to be functional by means of emergency back-up electric supply. However, this hospital has only one such supply and it is linked to an operation theatre only.
In the video that mid-day is in possession of, the six were finally rescued after a doctor climbed atop a stool to reach the emergency lock and unlocked it by using a key, thereby ending their misery.
Pass the buck
When mid-day spoke to the medical superintendent, Dr Sanjay Kumar Krishna, he accepted that the incident had occurred but insisted that the hospital couldn’t be held responsible as the emergency power back up was linked to an OT. “We can’t do anything if suddenly power goes away. Reliance provides the electricity supply in the hospital. The back up facility is linked to an OT, where an operation was underway so we couldn’t divert it,” said Krishna.
When asked why fire brigades were not called instead, he said “he was unaware of it” and “will look into the matter”, going on to further state that there is an electrician on-call but couldn’t explain where he was at the time.
Meanwhile, BMC health officer Dr Padmaja simply said, “We will inquire about the issue.”
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