A six-year-old boy died at a state-run children’s hospital in Kolkata on Monday after his family alleged he was made to wait for hours in soaring heat before receiving treatment.
The boy, identified as Shakib from Howrah’s Bankra area, had been running a high fever for several days. His family rushed him to Dr B.C. Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences after his condition worsened, relatives said.
They alleged that emergency staff directed them to the outpatient department and asked them to queue for a registration card despite repeated pleas that the child was critically ill. The family said they waited for nearly two hours in the heat before the boy collapsed and died before he could be admitted to a ward.
“We kept requesting them to check him immediately but no one listened. He was burning with fever,” one relative told reporters outside the hospital.
Hospital authorities said an internal inquiry had been ordered into the incident.
