Hyderabad: Telangana’s Gandhi Hospital is yet again under a controversy, this time, for allegedly misplacing the body for a covid-19 patient. Amid the ongoing protests in the government-run hospital, there are reports of the missing of the body of a deceased patient who was tested covid-19 positive and shifted from Medicity to Gandhi on June 8th.
The 35-year old man owned and worked at LifeCare Medical Hall in Hyderabad’s Mehdipatnam area.
The family of the deceased was called two days after his admission at the hospital saying that the man has succumbed to the virus and asked to identify the body at the hospital. Upon reaching the mortuary, the family realized that none of the bodies belonged to their kin.
They raised a complaint regarding the missing of the body at the hospital but couldn’t get any response from the Gandhi authorities.
“On the morning of June 10, we received a call from Gandhi informing us that our brother has expired. Until 5 pm they made us wait outside the mortuary. There were around 12 bodies in the morgue. But we couldn’t find our brother’s body,” said the family.
When they couldn’t find the body in the mortuary, they hoped that their family member was still alive and undergoing treatment as he only had mild symptoms.
“Everyone is saying that they will look into the matter. After continuous requests they allowed us to check inside the ICU. We had hope that he might still be undergoing treatment. But he is missing from ICU as well. He was initially admitted to Medicity hospital on June 7 for fever. The hospital told us his condition is stable and can be discharged in two days. But after COVID result, was shifted to Gandhi,” said the family.
Meanwhile, the Chilkalguda police have been searching each floor of the Gandhi hospital for the deceased’s body. The police reports say that there no entry is present regsrding the man in the mortuary register which could also mean that he is still undergoing treatment. The investigating team hasn’t ruled out the possibility of the body getting misplaced. They suspect it to have been left somewhere on the corridors of the hospital. Since there are no CCTV cameras in the hospital, every room, floor and corridor is being checked for the body.
This is not for the first case when the body of a deceased COVID patient has gone missing in Telangana or Gandhi Hospital in particular.
On June 9, Gandhi Hospital had sent the wrong body of a Covid-19 patient for burial. The victim’s family realized the mistake and allegedly attacked the doctors. This gave rise to a new controversy for Gandhi hospital.
One of such incidents is also the reason behind the ongoing junior doctor’s protest at Gandhi which has now seen the support of many of the PG doctors there.
The case was of a 48-year old man who passed away due to covid-19 and the body was handed over to the family. They later noticed upon reaching the graveyard that the body was someone else’s and assaulted the doctors allegedly accusing them of having exchanged the body. However, the officials rubbished the allegations.
Later, the wife and other family members identified the same body after it was sent back to Gandhi and buried it.
Recently, a woman had also accused the Gandhi hospital for misplacing her husband’s body. It was then found out that the hospital had cremated it without informing the family members. The woman filed a case in the High Court over the serious mistake of the authorities.
The court highly criticized the hospital officials for carrying out the last rites of the deceased patient without informing his family.
