January 22, 2025

Gruesome Incident: Nurse Beating Patient Regularly In Kolkata

By Anukriti Roy

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Anukriti is a student who dabbles in writing when she finds time.

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Florence Nightingale must be turning in her grave. A nurse/ayah in Kolkata has done something that goes against the ethics of the profession and is blatantly criminal. She ignored her duties and when the patient called her for help, she regularly pulled her hair and beat her up. That the nurse was in her twenties and the patient was an 85-year old who was recovering from a second stroke makes the issue even more depressing.

Sanjukta Paik, the nurse, was hired about four months back by the Saha family in the Kolkata suburb of Ganguly Bagan to look after their ailing matriarch. She was being paid Rs 600 per day for her duties. But it was obvious from the CCTV footage that she was not interested in her job and was more interested in listening to music on her mobile phone and chatting with her friends. Whenever the patient called her for help, she would pull her hair and beat her up.

The family came to know of the torture on spotting injury marks on the patient and scanning the footage. They immediately lodged a complaint with the police who arrested the nurse after going through the CCTV proof. The centre from which the nurse was hired was also informed.

This incident throws light on the mushrooming nurse and ayah centres in Kolkata. These centres function without rules and regulations and often hire anyone without going through their credentials. A person who is hired to look after a patient must possess some minimum nursing qualifications, apart from being compassionate and caring. Even if an ayah is hired, she must be sensitized for patient duty. Not everyone can keep up with the demands of a patient. Hence, it is necessary that the government makes rules for these centres and every person who is employed to look after a patient is properly sensitized for the job.