Cop bleeds to death; doctors couldn't care less

By Prashant Pandey

NEW DELHI, AUG. 20. Non-availability of timely medical treatment turned fatal for a Delhi Police constable late on Sunday night when he bled to death in the casualty ward of a premier Central Government hospital in the heart of the Capital after doctors refused to attend to him for well over two and a half hours.

Tragedy struck the family of Head Constable Rahimuddin, posted at the Ramakrishnapuram Sector IV police post here, on Sunday evening when on his way to Nuh village in Faridabad for investigation of a case, he was critically injured in a road accident. According to his brother, Shahmuddin Khan, the accident took place around 5 p.m. when the scooter which Rahimuddin was driving collided with a truck near Ferozepur Rajput village at Hathen in Faridabad. ``He fell down from the scooter under the impact of the collision and the truck tyres ran over his hands and his right leg.''

Shahmuddin came to know about the accident from a fellow- villager half an hour later. ``Luckily, this villager was there on the spot and along with some others who had gathered around Rahimuddin, he rushed my brother to Escorts Hospital in Faridabad.''

After attending to him for about two hours, doctors at Escorts referred Rahimuddin to Safdarjang Hospital in New Delhi. ``Rahimuddin was admitted to the Casualty ward of Safdarjang Hospital around 8-45 p.m. but no one attended to him for half an hour. He was then referred to the emergency operation theatre of Orthopaedics Department,'' Shahamuddin said.

Rahimuddin was subsequently shifted to the Orthopaedics Department. ``The doctors there behaved rudely and asked us to take Rahimuddin back to the Casualty,'' Shahmuddin alleged. ``I was told that since Rahimuddin had bled profusely, he needed to be given blood which was the job of the Casualty staff.''

Rahimuddin was brought back to Casualty. ``Here, the staff told us that any treatment to Rahimuddin could be administered only by the department he was referred to. So we again took him back to the operation theatre. But much time was lost in the process,'' rued Shahmuddin.

It was only after Rahimuddin's family contacted senior police officers that the emergency operation theatre staff decided to start his treatment. It was too late as Rahimuddin was already dead. ``All we could do was shout and heckle the staff throughout,'' Shahmuddin said in a choked voice.

``When a policeman on duty can be left to die in a city hospital, how can anyone expect anything better?'' he rued on Monday afternoon as he waited for his brother's body to be transferred to the Sabzi Mandi mortuary.

The police have registered a case under Section 304-A of the Indian Penal Code against two doctors -- Dr. A. K. Jain and Dr. Diwan Singh -- but no arrests have been made so far.

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