GURGAON: Tension flared at BK Civil Hospital in Faridabad on Monday after the death of a 45-year-old man triggered allegations that precious minutes were lost to paperwork and a defunct lift.Friends who rushed Faiz Ahmed to the govt hospital claimed staff first asked them to get a card and an OPD slip made before a doctor would see him. They also alleged that they were forced to take him through a long underground ramp to the third floor because the lift was not working. Hospital authorities denied both claims, saying Ahmed was brought in a critical, “near-death” condition and was attended to without delay.Ahmed, a welder from Bihar’s Gopalganj district who had lived in Sanjay Colony for years, collapsed suddenly at home on Monday morning. According to his friends, he was washing clothes when he complained of severe chest pain and breathlessness before falling unconscious.He was rushed to BK Civil Hospital by friends, including Taufiq. They alleged that instead of administering immediate treatment, the hospital staff first told to complete formalities. Taufiq alleged they were repeatedly told to get a card made and bring an OPD slip despite the emergency.The friends further alleged that after doctors advised shifting Ahmed to the heart centre on the third floor, they ran into another hurdle. “The lift was broken. So, we had to take him through the underground ramp, which is a very long route. By the time we reached the doctors on the third floor, he had died,” said Bobban Majhi.Another man who accompanied Ahmed made a similar allegation, saying they had no option but to carry him through the ramp while he was in an extremely serious condition.Others present at the hospital described the episode as “gross negligence” and said emergency facilities must have basic services, especially working lifts, available at all times.The hospital management, however, rejected the allegations outright. Dr Jayant Ahuja, chief medical officer of Faridabad, said Ahmed was already in a critical condition when he was brought in and that the lift was fully operational. “There was no delay due to any technical fault,” he added.Emergency medical officer Dr Aman Kaushik, too, said the patient was brought in a “gasping” state, and was effectively “brought dead”. Officials said he was attended to immediately but could not be revived. A hospital representative insisted there was “no defect in the system” and alleged that claims circulating on social media about negligence were misleading and appeared to be “cooked-up stories”.The incident brought to focus the hospital’s emergency response and infrastructure. It came against the backdrop of an earlier controversy at the same facility, where a daily wager allegedly had to carry his wife’s body on a wooden pushcart for nearly 15km after failing to get an ambulance and being unable to afford a private vehicle.
