The 60-year-old was brought to the hospital by his son around 9 pm, who was also convinced that his father might have COVID-19. (Representational Image)

THE BODY of a 60-year-old man who passed away on Tuesday night with COVID-19 symptoms was released to his family by GMSH-16 despite the family’s insistence that the man had COVID-19-like symptoms and should be tested for the disease. Though the deceased tested negative for novel coronavirus on Wednesday night, his body was with his family for six hours between 11 pm and 3:30 am before members of his family called up the police and insisted that he be tested for COVID-19 at the hospital in the early hours of Tuesday.

“When we arrived at the hospital, the junior resident working in the ward told us that my father-in-law had symptoms of COVID-19, but then later after having a chat with his seniors, he told us we can take the body back with us and it does not need to be tested,” says the 60-year-old man’s son-in-law, who works as an OT technician at PGIMER. Since the deceased man’s daughter and son-in-law are medical professionals employed at PGIMER, both were worried that due procedure was not followed by not testing the man despite his symptoms.

The 60-year-old was brought to the hospital by his son around 9 pm, who was also convinced that his father might have COVID-19. “My father had mild fever and cough for the past four days before he complained of not being able to breathe last night and he seemed to get paralyzed and passed away even before we left for the hospital,” says the patient’s son. He adds that though his sister and brother-in-law insisted that his deceased father be tested for COVID-19, the doctor told them to take the body back home. “At the time, I was also not in a condition to think so I agreed to what the medical staff said,” says the son, who runs a garments retail store in Sector 15.

However, the family’s ordeal did not end there. “Even while trying to take our father’s body back home, we felt so harassed because they refused to provide us an ambulance. Finally, we had to hire a private ambulance and take that home,” reveals the deceased patient’s son. Later, around 3:30 am, the patient’s family decided to contact the Police Control Room and asked for the patient’s body to be taken to the hospital to get tested. “Even then, they tried to tell us that if we were worried we could all get ourselves tested tomorrow, why get the deceased person tested? But we remained adamant,” says the patient’s son-in-law, who works at PGIMER.

After The Indian Express contacted officials in the health department and the administration on Tuesday night and followed up on Wednesday morning to enquire regarding the incident, the UT Administration sent a press release stating that the patient had a history of hypertension and diabetes and “no symptoms of high grade fever with breathlessness etc and any history of travel or contact with positive COVID 19 patients”.

However, the case report by GMSH-16 staff, a copy of which is with The Indian Express, states that the patient had a history of “fever and cough” for the past five days, and also the word MLC (medico legal case) was scribbled on the left hand corner of the report. “They first wrote MLC and then removed it later after speaking to some senior doctor,” claims the 60-year-old man’s son.