Shocking as it may sound, the state's premier health institute has no drinking water facility for patients, their family members or staff. In fact, even doctors and nurses have to queue up in front of a single municipal tap within the campus to fill up bottles. The other alternative is to purchase bottled drinking water from stalls inside the hospital. The situation only gets worse during the summer.

"Twice a day, we go to the gurdwara or the municipal tap to fill these plastic bottles for a relative admitted to the cardiology department. We cannot afford to purchase three-four bottles of water every day. Doctors and nurses have advised us against collecting drinking water from the taps in the ward," said Amitabha Sarkar, standing in the queue with two empty bottles.

Water at SSKM was always considered unfit for drinking and the situation took a turn for the worse when arsenic was detected in it. A couple of years ago, water purification units were fitted in all the wards. Although these were set up inside rooms occupied by nurses, patients and their relatives were allowed to collect water.