Poor medical services in the area led to more deaths, say residents

As rescue workers looked for survivors in the debris of the three-floor building that came crashing down on Sunday morning, friends and relatives of the victims said poor medical services in the area cost some of them their lives.

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The Kabir Shaikh building in Gaibi Nagar had 33 people in it at the time of the collapse, according to officials.

Eight people have died and 22 were left injured after the building collapsed.

Residents, however, claim, lives could have been saved if they had access to better hospitals. They said the only medical facility in the area is the Indira Gandhi Memorial (IGM) hospital, and it is not equipped to handle such a disaster.

Zakir Shaikh, 25, a friend of one of the victims, Muddasir Khurshid Alam Ansari, 20, said, “We pulled Muddasir out of the debris. He was alive even when we reached IGM hospital. But a doctor there said we should take him to a better hospital for treatment.”

Shaikh said Muddasir had to be taken to a hospital 15km away, and that he had died on the way.

Danish Ali, another local, said the hospital was understaffed as it was a Sunday.

“We were screaming for doctors to help us, but we soon realised there were few doctors. Doctors were called in from outside to tend to the injured. The nearest civic hospital is in Thane or Kalwa, and it takes at least an hour to reach there,” he said.

Dr Vidya Shetty, the Bhiwandi Corporation medical officer denied that medical facilities in the area are poor.

“Services are there, but we need para-medical staff for this kind of work load. We have a population of eight lakh people, for which we have formed 15 teams for emergency work. This hospital gives them basic facilities, but for better treatment, we need to refer patients to a higher centre. To handle Sunday’s disaster, we had a private doctor visit the patients.”