Bihar: Bettiah banker awaits Covid test report, burial

BETTIAH: Lying in a plastic bodybag at his home since Friday, a banker’s body awaits burial. Holding up his final journey is the Covid-19 test report, which is yet to arrive from Patna.
While bereaved family members sat around the body, a team in PPE kit led by district health society doctor Tamanna arrived at the deceased’s residence here on Saturday afternoon and sanitised the body and the premises. The doctor told family members that the deceased’s test report is still pending.
The deceased banker’s brother said the medical team arrived only after colleagues at the SBI main branch at Bettiah informed the district magistrate. Coincidentally, several bank employees had earlier tested positive making colleagues apprehensive.
Narrating the banker’s final journey, his brother said the deceased had gone for a test on July 7. The True-Nat test report, which came on July 10, showed him to be infected. However, with the kit for supplementary confirmatory test not being available at the Government Medical College at Bettiah, his sample was then sent to Patna and the banker continued to be in home isolation. “ Even now, we are yet to know the result of my brother’s (Covid) test,” the brother said.
Med college principal denies all allegations
The bereaved kin further recalled their traumatic experience at the medical college here on Friday. “When my brother began feeling pain in the chest yesterday, we rushed him to hospital. He was attended to after over an hour and put on oxygen. He passed away half an hour later. We waited for doctors to certify his death but no one came. We then brought his body home,” he said.
Government Medical College principal Binod Kumar, however, denied the allegations. “We needed fresh swab samples for RT-PCR tests at the RMRI in Patna. But none of the bankers, including the deceased, had complied,” he said, adding that the SBI main branch chief manager has made a fresh request on Saturday to get all his employees tested.
Further, 11 SBI employees in Bagaha-2 have also tested positive. Regional manager Birendra Kumar said the branch has been closed for three days.
The spike in Covid-19 cases has been alarming over the past week in West Champaran. From July 1 to July 11, 135 cases were reported. Between July 12 and 17, 395 people tested positive. On Saturday, 43 cases were reported, taking the tally to 777.
Close on the heels of suspected Covid deaths of a trader and the banker here on Friday, a lawyer with symptoms similar to coronavirus died in home isolation near Sagar Pokhara on Saturday evening. Eye witness sources said the deceased’s wife and daughter took him to a hospital after somehow managing to get a rickshaw when no neighbour came out to help. Neighbours kept their doors shut when the family returned from hospital with the dead body.
Amid the escalating Covid threat, another BJP leader and kin have also reportedly tested positive. Nautan BJP MLA Narayan Prasad, his son, daughter-in-law and his cousin (deputy registrar at the Mahatma Gandhi Central University at Motihari) have all shifted to Patna, the MLA’s PA Amit Tiwary told media persons here on Saturday. Earlier, state BJP president Sanjay Jaiswal and kin along with Lauriya MLA Vinay Bihari and district BJP chief Dipendra Sarraf have tested positive in the past week.