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Relatives of Gedi Singh Sardar on Wednesday. (Animesh Sengupta)
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A 19-year-old snakebite victim died at MGM Medical College and Hospital on Wednesday after not being administered an anti-venom shot on time.
Chandil’s Gangudih village resident Gedi Singh Sardar was rushed to MGM hospital in the small hours of Wednesday after a snake bit him.
The doctor on emergency duty, however, asked Sardar’s family to buy an anti-venom injection from outside, as the hospital did not have any in stock.
But, by the time the family members came back with the injection around 6.15am, after being turned away by three medical stores, Sardar had died.
Superintendent of MGM Medical College and Hospital S.S. Prasad admitted that the health hub had indeed run out of anti-venom injections.
He, however, claimed that the death was due to a delay on the part of the parents in fetching the injection from outside.
“In such circumstances we write a prescription with the help of which the patient’s family members procure medicines from outside. In this case, the family members could not get us the injection on time. By the time the drug was administered, it was too late and it failed to have any effect on the patient,” Prasad said.
Sources said that the snake was on the cot on which Sardar went to bed the previous night and bit him on the right hand when he changed sides in sleep. The boy is immediately said to have fallen unconscious and rushed to Chandil referral hospital.
However, the doctor on emergency duty referred Sardar to MGM Medical College and Hospital around 1am. The family is said to have rushed to Jamshedpur, a distance of around 30km, with the patient within 30 minutes.
The police later recovered the body and sent it to the medical college’s mortuary for post-mortem.
Sardar, who earned his living by driving a tractor, is survived by his wife and two children.
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