MUMBAI: Patients labelled as ‘suspected Covid’ during admission to hospitals here are not being tested for the novel coronavirus even after death in a bid to dress up infection figures, charged opposition leader Devendra Fadnavis on Tuesday.
He said at least 44 bodies of ‘suspected Covid’ patients have been released from the civic-run Nair Hospital — a dedicated Covid-19 facility now — without the coronavirus test. There are several such instances from other hospitals too, said Fadnavis, who tweeted details of the letter he’s sent to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
The BJP accused the state government of fudging the Covid numbers. Fadnavis said not testing all patients could artificially bring down the Covid-19 death numbers significantly, but result in further spread of the disease “for lack of high-risk contacts being traced, tested and quarantined”.
Doctors said Covid-19 cannot be mentioned in death certificates without a positive test report. Dr Mohan Joshi, the new dean of Nair Hospital, said it would be unethical to mention Covid in a death certificate without adequate paperwork. “The family could face stigmatisation where they live,” he said.
A senior forensic expert from the city said it was “nearly impossible” to miss Covid-19 deaths among patients who are hospitalised with fever, cough or any Covidlike symptoms as their samples are mandatorily sent for testing.
However, a grey area could be the ‘brought dead’ cases. A doctor from KEM Hospital said there are at least 10 bodies in KEM at present that were not tested for Covid because they were either brought dead or died while waiting for admission. “Most of these bodies will be handed over to their families stating the patients had SARI (severe acute respiratory illness), but with no mention of Covid,” said the doctor.
When a person has either died at home or on the way to hospital, the police rely on his medical history and whether he was suffering from fever, myalgia, cough or any other Covid-like symptoms in the past 5-7 days. “Such cases are labelled as Covidsuspect and their samples are collected,” said a doctor from Sion Hospital.
Such bodies are stored in the mortuary and, if the report is positive, they are handed over to the family in a leak-proof body bag. If the report comes negative, an autopsy is carried out.
In the third scenario, if the individual, brought dead to the hospital, didn’t have any Covid-like symptoms recently, the police rely on their family physician to furnish a death certificate.
Sion dean Dr Pramod Ingale said in the ‘brought dead’ cases, Covid-19 test is not carried out. “If there is a clear medical history of heart, kidney or any longstanding ailment, the death is certified as natural and no tests are carried out,” he said. However, the doctor-on-call at Bandra Bhabha said they carry out Covid-19 test in ‘brought dead’ cases too.
He said at least 44 bodies of ‘suspected Covid’ patients have been released from the civic-run Nair Hospital — a dedicated Covid-19 facility now — without the coronavirus test. There are several such instances from other hospitals too, said Fadnavis, who tweeted details of the letter he’s sent to chief minister Uddhav Thackeray.
44 such bodies were released as suspected #COVID19 from Nair Hospital, Mumbai alone. There are many more which I k… https://t.co/MbHvbFQ3zq
— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) 1587477308000The BJP accused the state government of fudging the Covid numbers. Fadnavis said not testing all patients could artificially bring down the Covid-19 death numbers significantly, but result in further spread of the disease “for lack of high-risk contacts being traced, tested and quarantined”.
Doctors said Covid-19 cannot be mentioned in death certificates without a positive test report. Dr Mohan Joshi, the new dean of Nair Hospital, said it would be unethical to mention Covid in a death certificate without adequate paperwork. “The family could face stigmatisation where they live,” he said.
A senior forensic expert from the city said it was “nearly impossible” to miss Covid-19 deaths among patients who are hospitalised with fever, cough or any Covidlike symptoms as their samples are mandatorily sent for testing.
However, a grey area could be the ‘brought dead’ cases. A doctor from KEM Hospital said there are at least 10 bodies in KEM at present that were not tested for Covid because they were either brought dead or died while waiting for admission. “Most of these bodies will be handed over to their families stating the patients had SARI (severe acute respiratory illness), but with no mention of Covid,” said the doctor.
When a person has either died at home or on the way to hospital, the police rely on his medical history and whether he was suffering from fever, myalgia, cough or any other Covid-like symptoms in the past 5-7 days. “Such cases are labelled as Covidsuspect and their samples are collected,” said a doctor from Sion Hospital.
Such bodies are stored in the mortuary and, if the report is positive, they are handed over to the family in a leak-proof body bag. If the report comes negative, an autopsy is carried out.
In the third scenario, if the individual, brought dead to the hospital, didn’t have any Covid-like symptoms recently, the police rely on their family physician to furnish a death certificate.
Sion dean Dr Pramod Ingale said in the ‘brought dead’ cases, Covid-19 test is not carried out. “If there is a clear medical history of heart, kidney or any longstanding ailment, the death is certified as natural and no tests are carried out,” he said. However, the doctor-on-call at Bandra Bhabha said they carry out Covid-19 test in ‘brought dead’ cases too.
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