R.G. Kar Lift Tragedy Exposes India’s Hospital Safety Blind Spot

Arup Banerjee visited R.G. Kar Medical College, Kolkata at night. The boy was his four-year-old son, who was being operated on for a broken arm. The family entered a lift, which was descending after the operation. 

The lift was faulty, fell to a locked underground staircase, and left them in the dark. By morning, Arup was dead. He was 41.

There were severe internal injuries that were found in the postmortem. His liver, lungs and heart burst open. This has since led to the arrest of five people. What is even more difficult to believe is the fact that it could have been prevented. 

There was no operator who was on the lift, which state rules stipulate. There was a faulty emergency alarm. Employees had difficulties locating keys to access the doors.

The lift itself was more than ten years old and was said to have a lot of defects. Hospital doctors had raised lift issues in the past. Nobody acted. The officials of the hospital claimed that lift maintenance would fall under the Public Works Department. The PWD points elsewhere. It is at that interdepartmental gap where accountability is lost.

This is not an isolated case. Another such death occurred in Bhadrak in Odisha in 2025. Maharashtra even operates hospitals by lift rules that date back to 1958. The fix is not complicated. 

This can be avoided with mandatory operators, periodically checked third parties, a simple fault-monitoring technology, etc. The tools exist. The standards exist on paper. The lack is the determination to take a hospital lift as a system of life-saving that it is.