Two alleged lapses by Covid-19 healthcare workers have shaken Kerala’s health department, once toasted for its initial handling of the outbreak but now facing censure over a recent surge in infections in the state.
One of the charges is that a Covid-19 patient died because his ventilator tube was not properly fitted. The other is that a hospital mixed up the identities of two Covid-19 patients and allowed the family of one of them to go on believing he was alive for three days after his death.
The allegations surfaced on Monday, a day after Union health minister Harsh Vardhan blamed Kerala authorities’ “negligence” during the Onam festival in August for the spike in Covid-19 cases.
One of the allegations owes to a leaked audio message, purportedly from a nursing officer, that had been shared within a WhatsApp group of nurses, government officials said.
The speaker in the audio warns the nurses against any lapses and cites how a poorly fitted ventilator tube had cost Harris, a patient, his life on July 20.
“Harris was ready to be moved to the ward. His family complained about his death but we somehow escaped blame. The doctors didn’t blame us,” the speaker says.
State health minister K.K. Shailaja on Monday ordered an inquiry into the death of a patient named Harris at the Government Medical College in Kalamassery, Ernakulam. A nursing officer at the hospital, Jalaja Devi, has been suspended.
In the audio, the speaker admits to multiple instances of negligence.
“Several patients have died because of such lapses. Doctors have reported them, but not taken any action against us because we are working hard. Yet such small lapses on our part have cost the lives of several patients,” the speaker says.
“They (doctors) have told us about these issues and asked us to tell the staff to be extra careful. In case we get caught there will be problems.”
The Congress and the BJP protested outside the hospital on Monday.
Zainaba, elder sister of Harris, told reporters that “no one should go through this”.
The family said it had sought an explanation from the hospital how a patient who seemed to be recovering well could die so suddenly, but had received no response.
“Our 85-year-old mother is distraught. His (Harris’s) wife is a mental wreck. He has two children,” Zainaba said, adding that the family had lodged a police complaint of medical negligence.
In the second instance, a family from Kollam has alleged they were kept in the dark about the death of a member, whose body was eventually found in the morgue of the Government Medical College in Thiruvananthapuram after a hunt.
A Covid-19 team had taken Sulaiman Kunju, 85, to a private hospital and then a Covid treatment centre, before moving him to the government medical college in the district. From there he was shifted to the Thiruvananthapuram hospital, but the family was not told.
The family said they regularly left food packets and fresh clothes for Kunju at the security desk of the Kollam hospital, believing he was there and recovering.
“I regularly checked on my father’s health condition by calling the security desk. On Thursday I got a call saying my father had been moved to the non-Covid ward. When I went to meet him on Friday, I realised there had been a mess-up,” Kunju’s son Naushad said.
Apparently, the health updates Naushad was receiving were those of a namesake of his father, admitted to the Kollam hospital.
“We sought the help of the local panchayat officials, who traced my father to the morgue in Thiruvananthapuram three days after he had died on October 13,” Naushad said.
