Patients at an East Delhi on Sunday. (Express photo for representation)
A 55-year-old Ujjain woman who died in an ambulance as she was refused admission in a government COVID facility — on the grounds that it was meant only for confirmed cases — turned out positive for coronavirus.
The patients’ relatives claim they kept pleading with the staff to open the gate leading to the ICU at R D Gardi Medical College, Ujjain, on Friday morning. While her condition deteriorated in the ambulance, the college staff pretended to look for keys, her family members allege.
When they could not find the keys for nearly 45 minutes, the relatives of the Danigate resident broke open the lock. But by then, it was too late. The woman, who had been referred to the medical college on recommendation from the collector because she suffered respiratory failure, had succumbed.
In a clarification issued later, the college administration claimed she could not have been admitted to the ICU because it was a facility meant only for confirmed COVID-19 patients, and her test report were awaited then. The administration said the relatives could not understand what the health workers were telling them and broke open the gate. The patient should have been taken to the isolation ward meant for suspect COVID cases, they said.
Dr H P Sonaniya, the nodal officer for the isolation ward, told The Indian Express that the woman’s test report was received late on Sunday and was positive. “It’s difficult to say whether she could have survived had she been admitted immediately, because she had suffered respiratory failure. She was a patient with serious comorbidity,” he said.
The woman, suffering from high BP, asthama and obesity, was first admitted to the district hospital around 7 pm on Thursday. Then she was shifted to Madhavnagar hospital around 3.30 am on Friday, and hours later, sent to RD Gardi Medical College on the district collector’s recommendation.
The woman had no travel history and her eight family members have tested negative for coronavirus. Dr Sonaniya said reports of two or three relatives are still awaited, and admitted he was at a loss to know how she could have contracted the virus. “We are trying to trace how she could have been infected,” he said.
Referring to the first COVID-19 death in Ujjain, he said the 65-year-old woman too did not travel anywhere. However, her son had tested positive. “It’s possible she caught the infection from him,” he said.