Kolkata: A plane carrying an ailing passenger requiring immediate medical attention landed at Kolkata airport on Saturday morning only to find no doctors on call. Though the airport has a team of doctors on its payroll and has a duty roster to ensure they are available round-the-clock, airport officials said they could not reach the patient on time as they are housed in the old terminal. There is no medical unit in the swanky new facility that was commissioned earlier this month.
Basant Kumar Raut, 60, on board Air India's morning Delhi-Kolkata flight AI 401 complained of suffocation and breathlessness midair. Following an announcement, a lady doctor on board came to his help. The pilot, meanwhile, radioed Kolkata ATC and sought priority landing. Accordingly, other flights were put on hold and the plane allowed to land without delay. After touching down at 8.51 am, it taxied to an aerobridge at the new terminal and the pilot requested passengers to remain seated so that a doctor could board the plane and attend to Raut and wheel him out if needed.
But there were no signs of a physician for several minutes and the cabin crew asked passengers to disembark. That is when CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta, who was on the flight, stepped in. He urged all passengers to remain seated till the patient was attended upon. Though many passengers were in a hurry to leave, a majority readily agreed to stay put in the aircraft. When 15 minutes passed without a doctor in sight, worried Air India officials approached the MP and explained that if they did not disembark on time, the return flight would get delayed. Dasgupta, a known champion of public sector units, realized his stand would have an adverse affect on the airline's performance and agreed to vacate the aircraft.
31/03/13 Times of India
