Title - Rail doctors’ ‘neglect of duty’ to be taken up

They had allegedly refused to attend to a passenger at Shoranur station, which led to his death

Action will be taken against the railway doctors if they are found guilty of refusing to provide emergency medical help to a train passenger, resulting in his death at Shoranur railway station platform on Friday, Palakkad Railway Division officials have said.The officials said that the matter was brought to the attention of the Palakkad Railway Divisional Manager Piyush Agarwal who was in Delhi. He would return on Monday and look into the matter, they said.A passenger, Ashokan, 70, of Ayiloor near Nemmara, who was coming from Kozhikode to Palakkad in the Calicut-Coimbatore passenger train on Friday developed chest pain when the train approached Shoranur station around 7.45 a.m. Co-passengers brought him to the platform and informed the railway police, who approached the railway hospital nearby. The railway police alleged that both doctors on duty there did not turn up to examine the passenger who struggled for 45 minutes before his death. A constable on duty at the station said the police went to the railway hospital thrice. “The senior medical officer asked us to spray water on the face of the passenger,” the constable said. The railway police said their request to provide the hospital ambulance to bring the patient to the hospital was also turned down.

The constable said the Shoranur railway station master too had sought emergency medical service. A junior doctor later came from the hospital and declared the patient dead.

The police said they then requested the doctors to provide the ambulance to shift the body. That was also refused, the constable said. At the intervention of the Shoranur municipality, the body was taken to the mortuary of the hospital in another ambulance. This was the second such incident at the Shoranur railway station in the recent past, the railway police said. In another incident last month, a woman who developed labour pain got down at the Shoranur railway station. The railway police sought the help from the railway hospital but they refused medical help. A woman constable took the passenger, to a private hospital in Thrissur, they said.