New Delhi, September 3
More than a year after IIT Kharagpur’s third year electrical engineer student Rohit Kumar died of medical negligence on the campus hospital, the Institute’s Board of Governors (BOG) has stopped five increments of two at the hospital -- Director N.K. Som and doctor on duty on that fateful day Dharemsheel Gupta.
Ironically, both were earlier absolved of the negligence charge by a two-member medical inquiry committee the Institute set up to study the circumstances leading to Rohit’s death on March 23 last. The panel said the doctors made a correct diagnoses and their line of management, given the available hospital resources, was correct.
A second panel set up later to examine administrative lapses in the available resources at Dr BC Roy Technology Hospital, agreed with the correctness of the treatment administered to Rohit though it said the student should have been shifted to another hospital in a critical care ambulance.
This panel went ahead to blame the then Hospital Chairman and Deputy Director of the Institute Prof Madhusudan Chakraborty (now Director, IIT Bhubaneshwar) saying he should have been more proactive in administering the hospital, which lacks facilities despite catering to 7000 students, 700 faculty and 1500 non teaching staff.
The BOG, in their latest report, however, steered clear of naming Prof Chakraborty for any lapse. Enraged by the decision, the IIT Teachers’ Association has written to the Board (which includes Secretary, HRD Ministry, Vibha Puri Das) seeking revocation of the order against doctors and an “equitable approach to identify those responsible for the student’s death”.
The faculty is resenting the fact that while Director, IIT Kharagpur Damodar Acharya, who had to resign last March after students vandalized his home, was reinstated by BoG and Prof Chakraborty, directly responsible for hospital management, was promoted as IIT Bhubaneshwar Director, the doctors absolved by medical inquiry have been made scapegoats.
“Prof Chakraborty was the hospital CEO when the incident happened. The latest
inquiry has found infrastructural lapses at the hospital as the main factor behind Rohit’s death. Moreover, though Acharya had to resign under students’ pressure last March, he was reinstated during summer vacations,” a senior faculty member told the Tribune today. The teachers’ association has shot off its letter in time for the BOG meeting on September 4 to discuss the matter. The board is headed by B Muthuraman, Vice-Chairman, Tata Steel, and comprises Secretaries, Ministry of HRD and Science and Technology, Directors, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Rajsathan and two IIT Deans.
