A woman patient died after being stuck in a lift at Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College Hospital in Gazipur for about 45 minutes on Sunday.
The liftmen are alleged to have misbehaved with the deceased’s family members instead of rescuing them.

The victim was Momtaz Begum, 53, wife of Sharfuddin Ahmed of Barigaon village at Raniganj in Kapasia.
Sharmin Akhter, the daughter of Momtaz, said, “My mother became ill. We brought her to the hospital around 6:00am. She was first admitted to the Medicine Department, and she was taken under some tests that detected problems in her heart.”

“Later, the doctor, who saw the patient, advised us to take her to a doctor at the heart department on the third floor.”
“We got on the lift from the 10th floor to the third floor. But the lift stopped at the middle of the eighth floor. At that time, I, my maternal uncle, brother, and some others were in the lift,” she said.
“We were suffering from suffocation. We called three liftmen whose contact numbers were in the lift. But they misbehaved with us instead of rescuing us,” she said.

“We were stuck in the lift for 45 minutes. Finally, we called 999. After that, the firefighters rushed to the spot and rescued us,” said Sharmin. She said that her mother died in the lift. Jahangir Alam, deputy director of the hospital, said that the lift was stuck due to mechanical faults.
Later, the liftmen and firefighters rescued them, he said.

He added that they would look into if there was any negligence on the part on the part of anybody; if negligence is found, steps will be taken.
Jahangir Alam wrote a letter to the director general (DG) of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) that read that the patent got stuck in the lift, which is true, but sticking for 45 minutes in it is not true.
The director of Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College Hospital formed a five-member probe committee to look into the incident, with Head of Medicine Department Professor Dr Rubina Yasmin as the chief and Associate Professor of the department Dr Muhammad Mostafizur Rahman as the member secretary.

The members are Dr Sheikh Kamrul Karim of RP Medicine, Deputy Divisional Engineer Niazur Rahman, and Ward Master of the hospital Ratul Islam.
The committee was asked to submit a report within three working days.