Gujarat woman’s last call: Lying in faeces, nurses won’t help

AHMEDABAD: The last words of a 44-year-old woman, uttered in a call to her son, describes abject helplessness — she says she lying in her faeces, with nobody to help her at the Gujarat Cancer Research Institute (GCRI). Ruqsanabano Ansari died on Sunday in the Covid ward of the institute, on the Civil Hospital campus in Asarwa, after making the call. She had told her son that she was shivering; she could not clean herself because her hands would not move.
Ansari had told her son, Saddam, that staff members refused to help her. She is heard saying in the recording of the call that the nurses had told her that it was not their job to clean her. Then her voice suddenly lowers and a deathly silence descends on the line. Saddam, 21, is heard crying “Hello… hello”.
Ansari, a resident of Ajit Mill area, was admitted to the Covid ward at the GCRI on May 18. She had mild cough and fever.
“My sister boarded an 108 ambulance on her own. Later, her condition began deteriorating,” said her brother, Naushad Ansari. “Late on Saturday evening she called Saddam and told him that she felt paralyzed and that she had passed stool but nobody was at hand to clean her.”
On Sunday morning, Saddam was informed that his mother had died. Ansari’s family had to wait for about six hours to get her body.
“The local councillor, Iqbal Shaikh, pursued the matter with GCRI director Shashank Pandya and the body was eventually released at around 5.15pm,” said Naushad. He alleged that the hospital staff was callous. He said that last week another relative had died, in the newly set up Covid facility on the Civil Hospital campus. “Her ornaments were stolen. This is the state of affairs at the hospital now,” he said.
Shaikh said that the hospital staff and doctors responsible for ‘inhuman behaviour’ should face legal action.