By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Nov 23: What should have been swift emergency care turned into a nightmare of delays and indifference for two young M.Sc. Chemistry students from North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) after a serious road accident on November 17.
Stephanie Shadap (22) and Daritngen Ponduhkhei (20) were riding a scooter near NEHU Gate-II when they were hit by a speeding vehicle. Both suffered severe head and facial injuries. They were taken to Shillong Civil Hospital around 8:15 pm – but what happened next has sparked outrage across Meghalaya.
Eyewitnesses, all fellow NEHU students who rushed to the scene, say the nightmare began the moment the ambulance arrived.
No ward boys were available. Classmates had to physically carry the bleeding students from the ambulance into the emergency ward themselves.
Stephanie, who had a deep head wound, reportedly bled for nearly an hour before dressing was applied – that too only after students repeatedly demanded it. Daritngen lay on a bed with visible facial injuries, unattended for long stretches. Basic procedures – wound cleaning, stitching, X-rays – were either delayed for hours or never done.
One student who stayed with the families throughout the ordeal said: “When I walked in, Stephanie was still bleeding profusely. No dressing, no doctor checking on her. Daritngen was just lying there, no one even looking at her. There wasn’t a single ward boy in sight. We kept asking, ‘Why is nothing being done?’ The nurses said they were ‘too busy’ and there were ‘too many patients’.”
At around 9:45 pm, desperate students called former Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh. She reached the hospital shortly after 10 pm.
It was only after Ampareen’s arrival that plans were made to shift Stephanie to Nazareth Hospital. The medical surgeon, Dr. Cliff Anderson Wanniang, also reportedly arrived at the ward at this point.
However, the shifting process again lacked support. Students claimed they had to carry Stephanie themselves from the emergency ward to the ambulance, with only one ward boy available to assist.
Doctors had initially informed the students that Stephanie was “more critical” while Daritngen was “stable”. However, after being shifted to Nazareth Hospital, it was Daritngen who was found to be in a more serious state and remained unconscious, raising questions about the assessment made at the civil hospital.
When the family insisted on shifting Daritngen, hospital staff allegedly wanted to document that the shift was made at the family’s request—not due to any delay or lapse in treatment.
The students accompanying the victim said, “How can the family take the blame when the delay was clearly from the hospital’s side?”
With the ambulance still unavailable, the group finally decided to use the NEHU ambulance to shift Daritngen to Nazareth Hospital at around 10.45 pm.
Dr. Angel Paswet, Joint Director and Surgeon Superintendent of Shillong Civil Hospital, strongly rejected the allegations.
Speaking to reporters, she said: “A meeting was held with the doctors on duty after the social media outburst. The doctors insist they did their best and there was no delay in treatment. Stephanie was referred to Nazareth because Civil Hospital has no neurosurgeon on campus. Staff, including ward boys, were present as per roster. She suggested that the ward boys may have been “somewhere else” at the moment the patients arrived.
She further stated that doctors were already attending to the victims when the former Health Minister arrived. “It will be wrong to say our doctors acted only when she reached,” she asserted.
The incident has reignited long-standing anger over the state of affairs at a premier government hospital. Social media is flooded with stories of similar experiences. Many are asking why a hospital that serves the poorest citizens still lacks basic emergency readiness – and why patients are routinely pushed to private facilities the moment their condition turns serious.
One widely shared post read: “Ampareen Lyngdoh reached in minutes when students called her. Doctors only moved when she stood there. What does that tell us about who gets priority in our government hospitals?”
As of Sunday evening, Daritngen remains in intensive care at Nazareth Hospital while Stephanie is conscious and recovering.
