Kolkata, March 27: Investigations into the RG Kar elevator death case revealed that all three lift operators who were on duty on the night of March 20, when the incident occurred, were completely intoxicated due to excessive alcohol consumption and were unable to perform their duties.
The investigation revealed that the accident in the hospital building, which houses the trauma care center, could have also occurred in any other elevator, as the individuals who were supposed to operate those elevators were unable to perform their duties, a source from the Kolkata Police said.
All three elevator operators are currently in police custody. During the investigation, they also admitted that none of them received any kind of training before joining their duties at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital, which occurred a month before the accident.
The combination of lack of training and the intoxicated condition of the on-duty elevator operators eliminated any last-ditch effort to rescue Arup Bandopadhyay, the victim of the accident.
When the accident occurred, said a source from the city police, none of the lift operators even had the basic idea of reaching the basement by breaking open the elevator lock from the outside and attempting to rescue the victim.
"During interrogation, the three arrested elevator operators also claimed that being in a drunken state during night-duty is a common factor among the majority of non-medical supporting staff," the city police source said.
CCTV footage has confirmed that none of the three elevator operators were anywhere near any of the three elevators near the trauma care unit building after midnight, which corroborates the kind of mismanagement that is going on within the hospital premises, especially during the night and early hours.
The Public Works Department (PWD) had outsourced the maintenance of the lifts at RG Kar Hospital to one agency, while the responsibility for providing lift operators was contracted to a different agency.
The contract with the previous agency responsible for supplying lift operators expired last February. From mid-February onwards, the PWD awarded the contract to a new agency. Consequently, a new team of lift operators was recruited by this new agency.