RML Hospital had reported 54 Covid positive deaths until Saturday evening.
A day after The Indian Express reported about the mismatch between the coronavirus death data of the Delhi government and hospitals in the city, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said he has “asked the health department about the death details.”
“But there is nothing to hide. Delhi’s surveillance department sends details of the cases, but I have found the hospitals have not shared death reports. No case will be left uncounted… Hospitals are supposed to share a death summary with the case which shows the name, age and reason for the death. The death summaries have not been sent by the hospitals,” he told reporters Saturday.
According to the hospitals, a spreadsheet is shared by the Delhi government that seeks details such as number of patients added in 24 hours, those on ICU and ventilator, discharged, currently admitted and the number of deaths.
“There is a dashboard in the form of a spreadsheet shared by the Delhi government. We fill that regularly. However, the number of deaths from our hospital on their dashboard shows zero. Since we are central government hospitals, we share all death summaries with them (the Centre), which is then forwarded to the Delhi government,” said Dr NN Mathur, director of Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC).
The number of coronavirus casualties reported by Lok Nayak, Ram Manohar Lohia, LHMC and the Delhi and Jhajjar centres of AIIMS till Thursday was 116, according to data from these hospitals and confirmed by their officials to The Indian Express.
As per the government’s bulletin, the number of deaths from these four hospitals stands at 33, while the total number of casualties was 68 as of Friday night.
“We have already asked the hospitals to share the details. Once the details are in, then we will be able to give a correct picture. It is not possible to hide the number of cases and deaths. Declaring the number of deaths is an important issue, and it has to be clearly dealt with,” Jain told reporters.
At the AIIMS Delhi and Jhajjar campuses — the latter also has patients from the Capital — 14 people have died, Dr D K Sharma, Medical Superintendent of AIIMS, had told The Indian Express. The Delhi government health bulletin puts the AIIMS figure at two. On Saturday, head of the AIIMS trauma centre, Dr Amit Lathwal, said: “The details are sent to the Delhi government in the format shared by the state health department. We have been asked to share details on the reporting format, and we do that on a regular basis. There is no request for death summaries from the government.”
RML Hospital had reported 54 Covid positive deaths until Saturday evening. On Jain’s comments on some hospitals not sharing details on time, medical superintendent Dr Minakshi Bharadwaj said: “We are giving the details, but it’s not necessary that the timeframe will coincide…By Monday, we will be sharing all death summaries. The data shared by us is absolutely honest to the core.”