A female patient of Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital in Gazipur died after getting stuck in a hospital lift for over 40 minutes on Sunday morning.
Deceased Momtaz Begum, 50, wife of Md Sharfuddin, was from Raniganj Barigaon village in Kapasia upazila of Gazipur.
The hospital authority and district administration formed separate probe committees to investigate the incident.
Shahadat Hossain Selim, a relative and attendant of the patient, said that his aunty Momtaz was admitted to the hospital with cardiac arrest and breathing trouble at about 6:30am on the day.
Primarily, she was admitted to the medicine department located on the 9th floor of the hospital building. She was later transferred to the cardiac unit, situated on the same building鈥檚 3rd floor, he said.
While he and other relatives were shifting Momtaz to the cardiac unit using the hospital building鈥檚 lift no 3, it suddenly malfunctioned and stuck between the 8th and 9th floors, he said.
He alleged that they shouted for help, calling the liftmen and hospital staff to rescue them from inside the lift, but nobody responded.
鈥榃e were stuck inside the life for 45 minutes until the fire service rescued us after we had called them through the National Emergency Centre (999) phone call,鈥� he said.
Hospital resident surgeon Kamrul Islam said that when the fire service members rescued Momtaz she was found dead.
Hospital deputy director Jahangir Alam said that a four-member probe committee was formed with a deadline for submitting the investigation report within three days.
Relatives of the deceased also alleged that the hospital staff misbehaved with them and hurled abuses at them when they repeatedly pleaded for recovering them from the malfunctioning lift.
Gazipur deputy commissioner Abul Fate Mohammad Shafiqul Islam said that additional district magistrate Motiur Rahman was asked to investigate the incident and submit a report by Monday.
Earlier on May 4, another patient Md Zillur Rahman of the same Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital in Gazipur died falling through the gap of the floor and walls on the 11th floor of the hospital building.聽
