An acute electricity and water crisis prevailing at the Rangpur Medical College Hospital for the past one month has worsened over the last five days.  Patients, attendants and the hospital staff are collecting water from a tube-well. At night, the hospital is running on candlelight. The hospital has the capacity to treat 1,000 patients, but the number currently admitted is 1,800. Dr Md Safiqul Islam, acting director of the hospital, told The Independent that patients were being deprived to proper treatment because of the electricity crisis. He said costly testing equipment, the MRI machine and X-Ray machines had already been damaged due to low voltage. The acting director said 150 out of the 200 installed air conditioners had been damaged, adding that the hospital needed 11 MW of power daily. Dr Islam said a pump to lift water to overhead tanks, too, was lying idle for the past one month because of low voltage. He also said a generator had been installed at the Rangpur Medical College Hospital few years back, but it was too expensive to operate. The generator consumed 50 litres of diesel per hour. Dr Md Maruful Islam, head of the burn and plastic surgery department, told The Independent only two out of the eight air conditioners (AC) in his department were working at present. Even the two still functioning are vulnerable to erratic power supply, he added. He said ACs were important for patients of burn injury. Without air-conditioning, they would be susceptible to infection, he added. A visit to the hospital’s ward no. 3 revealed patients sleeping on beds and on the ground with their attendant using hand fans to cool them, while electric fans stood still. The ward also stank with foul odour spreading from the toilets. Patients alleged that the sweepers were unable to clean them due to a crisis of water. Patients and attendants were using water from a tube-well in front of the hospital, but the colour of the water was yellow. The attendants of the patients were standing there for long to collect that water. When contacted, Golam Mortuza, executive engineer, power supply, Rangpur division, said the problem had been created by a grid fault. He expected the issue to be resolved soon.