After not finding doctors or nurses at a local health complex, family members of a man, who took poison, attempted to perform gastric lavage or stomach pumping on the patient with a water pipe.
The incident took place at around 7:45pm at Taraganj Upazila Health Complex on Friday.
The patient's brother, Bablu Mia, said: “My brother Jikrul Islam took poison after his wife divorced him. When he fell sick, we took him to Taraganj Upazila Health Complex, but we could not find any doctor or nurses there.”
“After some time, we forced him to drink water with a pipe to get the poison out of his stomach,” he said.
Bablu added that a nurse later came to the health complex, and took care of the patient, but no doctors came to the facility till 9pm that night.
In this regard, Taraganj Upazila Health Complex Head and Health and Family Planning Officer Dr Nil Ratan Deb said actions will be taken against the staff if they did not perform their duties on time.
Requesting anonymity, several employees of the facility said that all doctors of the emergency department leave after 5pm.
