RG Kar Hospital: Mystery behind ‘bloodstained’ surgical gloves gets murkier by the day

Nearly 20 days after bloodstains were allegedly found in some fresh surgical gloves at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital (RGKMCH) in Kolkata, a probe by the hospital authorities has revealed that the stains were actually not blood.
The internal inquiry also revealed that the gloves were not supplied to the hospital by central medical stores, casting a shroud of mystery over the entire episode.
“The batch number of the gloves, which were supplied to the hospital from the central medical stores, and the batch number of the gloves on which the stains were found do not match. The GRN number also does not tally. This means that these gloves were not received by the hospital. We still don’t know where the gloves came from. The investigation is still going on,” Dr Saptarshi Chatterjee, medical superintendent and vice principal of RGKMCH, told media persons.
The incident first came to light on October 10 when an intern, while attending to an HIV patient at the hospital’s trauma care centre, took out a pair of fresh surgical gloves from a box of gloves and saw blood-like stains on them.
“The moment I took out a pair of gloves from the box, I found reddish stains on them. I thought somebody might have mistakenly kept used gloves inside the box and took out a second pair. Even they had the same blood-like stains. Multiple gloves in the freshly opened box had similar stains. They appeared to be bloodstains. But this can be verified only after a thorough examination,” the intern had told the media.
Doctors had flagged concerns that if those were indeed bloodstains, it could have spread infections and other diseases. The state health department ordered a probe after receiving a complaint, and the gloves were sent for examination.
“Tests conducted by the biochemistry laboratory confirmed that those were not blood stains. We have now sent the gloves to the forensic science laboratory to check what caused the stains…whether it was caused by some chemicals. We would be able to confirm once we get the forensic reports,” Dr Chatterjee said.
The RG Kar Medical College and Hospital has been in the eye of the storm since August 9 after a trainee doctor was allegedly raped and murdered in the hospital’s seminar room.
The incident triggered a nationwide protest. A section of junior doctors has been relentlessly protesting since then in Kolkata for a more robust security and infrastructure system in state-run medical colleges and hospitals.
Multiple allegations of corruption surfaced soon after, including illegal sale of biomedical waste, along with financial irregularities during the tenure of Sandip Ghosh, who was the principal of the college between 2021 and 2024, till he was expelled following the rape-murder incident.