Male Covid victim kin get woman’s body in big botch up, Ranchi hosp booked

Ranchi/Jamshedpur: In an embarrassing botch up that added to the trauma of two families who lost their kin to Covid-19 in different cities, a Ranchi-based private hospital handed over a woman’s body to the family of a male patient who died at the hospital on Friday. An FIR has been filed against Asclepius Center for Medical Sciences on instructions from the Ranchi administration.
Mohamed Samid Ansari (58), a resident of Jamshedpur, was admitted to the hospital on September 1 with pneumonia and tested positive for Covid-19 before he died there on Friday. The family, based at Jamshedpur’s Mango locality, only realized that they had been given the wrong body once they took it back home for the last rites.
The corpse was later identified as that of Milyani Minz (65), a resident of Ranchi’s Kokar area, Covid patient who died at the hospital around the same time. When her family reached at hospital on Saturday, they realized that her body was missing and it had been transported to Jamshedpur, leading to an arguments between them and the hospital staff. Ormanjhi police had to intervene and assured the family that they will receive the dead body soon.
“The body was handed over to us on Saturday morning and we brought it to our home town for burial. When we opened the plastic cover at the kabristan for the last rites, we found a woman’s body inside,” said Mohamed Hamid Ansari, the deceased’s younger brother.
Hamid added that they called up the hospital, but the management refused to admit any error on their part. The family then approached the Ranchi district administration before Ranchi SDM Lokesh Mishra reached the hospital and started an inquiry. “I directed the Ormanjhi police to track Ansari’s body and intimated his family in Jamshedpur when we found it. We have registered an FIR against the hospital for the serious lapse. Such botch-ups during the pandemic will not be tolerated and strict action will be taken against those responsible for the plight of the two families,” Mishra said.
“They (the hospital management) finally told us that my brother’s body is still lying at their mortuary and it will be handed over to us once we reach Ranchi,” said Mohamed Riaz Sharif, another relative of the deceased. The family said it has no idea about the identity of the woman whose body was given to them and they are rushing back to Ranchi to hand it over to the hospital so that her family can collect it and give her a farewell she deserves.
When contacted, the hospita’s business head Shadab Alam said: “The family members of the Jamshedpur patient got engaged in a heated argument with the hospital staff when they were informed that he had died. This created chaos and confusion and took the body without getting it verified.”
Ranchi civil surgeon Dr V B Prasad said: “The hospital was warned for its lackadaisical approach a week ago after they failed to submit the details of Covid patients admitted there. We will also take disciplinary action against the hospital in light of the lapse on Friday.”