Families of COVID-19 victims allege poor facilities at GMC Anantnag

The families of the victims who lost their battle to COVID-19 after remaining admitted at Government Medical College (GMC), Anantnag for nearly two weeks Tuesday blamed the mismanagement and poor facilities for the increased mortalities in the hospital.

The kith of the deceased assembled outside the hospital premises and narrated their ordeal to the media.

Among them was 39-year-old Asif Dada of Bakshiabad locality of Anantnag town who lost his mother, Mehbooba (67), and wife Shabnum (35) within 24 hours.

The duo remained in the isolation ward of the hospital for two weeks only to return home dead.

While Mehbooba, who was diabetic and hypertensive, was admitted on April 27 after her saturation dipped to 83, her daughter-in-law Shabnum was rushed to the hospital the following day after she complained of fever and low saturation (87).

Asif and his younger brother Junaid Dada attended to the duo even as both were themselves COVID-19 positive.

Few days later, their father Abdul Hameed Dada, 70, a retired teacher was also admitted in the same isolation ward but after remaining admitted for four days unattended, he decided to return home.

Dada managed a concentrator for himself and recovered.

“We admitted our mother two days after she started developing symptoms so that she could get better treatment but we were wrong. Had we known they admit patients to die we would never have come here,” Junaid said.

He said the little nursing staff the isolation ward had would not even bother to give their patients medicine regularly.

“Once my mother was not administered the necessary insulin dose, her sugar level went up and her condition deteriorated further. A doctor suggested a Trop-T investigation but we were told it would take three days,” Junaid said.

He said mostly non-specialists would come for a checkup once in the morning during the round, check the saturation level, and temperature and leave.

“In the night hours when the patient’s condition would worsen we would have to literally beg the nursing staff to call the junior or senior resident doctor on duty,” Junaid said.

He sai his mother’s saturation level finally dropped to 45 despite being on high-flow oxygen and there was no invasive ventilation facility in the hospital.

“Why aren’t specialist physicians or pulmonologists available round-the-clock. Why can’t the authorities make cardiologists or gastroenterologists or other super-specialists available for the patients with such co-morbidities? If they know they can’t treat the patients why don’t they refer them to Srinagar instead of keeping them in the isolation wards,” he asked.

Junaid’s mother finally breath her last after two weeks of struggle in the isolation ward at 11 pm to be buried the next morning.

The family was yet to come out of the shock when the next morning another tragedy befell it.

Asif’s wife Shabnum who was admitted next to her mother-in-law also lost her battle with COVID-19.

“My wife was sick with fever and had saturation in the eighties but she had no comorbidity at all. The doctors kept on saying she was alright but all of a sudden her saturation went down to fifties and she died,” Asif said.

He said when the oxygen plant supplying high-flow oxygen developed a snag one night they had to beg for bulk cylinders but none were available in the hospital.

” What was the fun of upgrading the district hospital to GMC if you couldn’t provide basic medicare,” Asif said.

Another, youth Asif Nazir who lost his father Nazeer Ahmad Tinda, 66, of Sarnal locality of Anantnag town blamed the incompetence of hospital authorities rather than the virus to the large-scale mortalities in the hospital.

“No X-ray or blood tests of our patient were done for four days and finally when they did it, they misplaced the reports. When we questioned the then in-charge of the hospital Dr Azia Manzoor, he threatened us of an FIR,” Asif said.

He appealed the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to probe the large-scale deaths occurring in the hospital.

The families of other COVID-19 victims, who remained admitted in the hospital for more than 10 days also accused the hospital authorities and Principal GMC, Anantnag for snatching their kin for the want of facilities.

“We were not given the medicines on time,” said Rayees Ahmad of Naibasti locality of Anantnag town who lost his father Abdul Gani Shah.

On April 24, 56-year-old Shahzada Bano, wife of Manzoor Ahmad Ghazi, of Kadipora locality of the old town admitted in the hospital also lost the battle to COVID-19 for want of ventilator support.

Bano was admitted in the hospital on April 16.

“She needed non-invasive ventilator support but there was no bed available in any of the tertiary care hospitals in Srinagar and she finally died in the isolation ward,” said her son Irfan Ghazi.

At least 20 patients died in the hospital in barely five days.

Among them was another daughter-in-law and mother-in-law duo from Harnag village of Anantnag.

Most of them remained admitted in the hospital for more than a week.

Principal GMC Anantnag, Dr Showkat Jeelani refuted the allegations of high fatalities due to COVID-19 in the hospital.

“Most of the patients have been discharged after successful treatment. Only few patients who came here very sick have died,” Dr Jeelani said.

He said that enough doctors and nursing staff had been kept available in the isolation facility.