Patient’s Death: Hospital blames those who were stuck in the lift

Hours after a patient died while stuck in a lift on Sunday, the authorities of Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College Hospital blamed the people inside for banging on the lift's door and causing the "door safety" system to fail. 

The lift was opened manually by its operator within 15 minutes after the door went out of order, the hospital authorities said in a letter, signed by director (acting) Jahangir Alam, sent to the Directorate General of Health Services the same day.

However, the victim's family members rejected the claim and said they were stuck for around 45 minutes and chaos was created because 16 to 18 people were in the lift amid a suffocating condition.

Fifty-three-year-old Mumtaz Begum of Barigao village in Gazipur's Kapasia upazila died allegedly of suffocation.

"The lift got stuck between the eighth and ninth floors at 11:15am due to a power outage. Once the lift gets stuck, the ARD [Automatic Rescue Device] needs one minute to start working," said the letter.

"But the lift's door safety system did not function after some of those in the lift, including patients, banged on the door," it said.

Those stuck opened the door and came out before the operator could take the lift to a floor manually. It took around 10-15 minutes to complete the process, the letter added.

Mumtaz, who was suffering from heart diseases, was immediately taken to the emergency department where doctors declared her dead, the letter said.

A five-member committee was formed to find the cause of the incident, the letter said.

"The hospital authorities' claim is not true. We were stuck for around 45 minutes," said Shahadat Hossain Salim, a relative of Mumtaz, who was also in the lift.

Asked about banging on the door, he said, "There were 16 to 18 people in the lift. It was chaos inside after the lift got struck."

Seeking anonymity, another person, who was in the lift, said, "A liftman came after around 10 to 15 minutes after we got stuck. But he went back quickly. Then, we tried to communicate with others over phone. We were pulled out around 30 minutes after the liftman left."