Gajendra Narayan Singh Sagarmatha Zonal Hospital in Rajbiraj remained tense throughout the day on Saturday due to protest over the death of a one-and-half-year-old boy.

Siddhartha Sah, the son of Ashok Sah of Rupani Rural Municipality-6, was rushed to Unique Hospital in Rayapur on Friday evening after he was taken ill suddenly. The hospital pronounced him dead. The boy’s guardians later took him to the zonal hospital thinking that the baby was alive and his treatment could be possible in Rajbiraj. However, the zonal hospital also pronounced him dead and kept the baby in the morgue.

Suspecting that the baby might have been bitten by a snake and he could be still alive, the guardians asked the zonal hospital to give the boy’s body so that they would take him to Biratnagar for treatment. But the hospital administration refused to hand over the body citing legal complications. The hospital said that post mortem of the baby was must before handing over the body to the family.

The child’s relatives and locals gathered in the zonal hospital on Saturday and barged into the morgue and forcibly took out the body. They claimed the boy was still alive as there was saliva in his mouth. The enraged relatives vandalised the morgue and emergency unit of the hospital. The boy was then at the snake bite treatment centre of Nepal Army in Choharwa in Siraha district. The treatment centre also pronounced the bay dead.

Medical Superintendent at the zonal hospital Dr Chumanlal Das said the boy was already dead when he was brought to the hospital. There was not negligence on part of the doctors regarding the incident, he added.

Following the tension at the hospital, people’s representatives of Rajbiraj Municipality, Rupani Rural Municipality, district police chief and hospital administration held a meeting which concluded that the boy was already dead by the time he was brought to the zonal hospital. The meeting also decided to form a probe committee under the chairmanship of Rajbiraj Mayor Shambhu Yadav.