Asymptomatic patient dies in Covid care centre

Coimbatore: A 60-year-old asymptomatic Covid-19 patient died of heart attack at the Covid care centre at Codissia trade fair complex at noon on Tuesday. A resident of Ganesh Nagar at Vadavalli, he breathed his last while asleep after breakfast.
The death sent 300-odd patients at the Covid care centre’s B hall, where the elderly man was put up, panicking.
The health department, however, said the cause of the patient’s death wasn’t Covid-19. He was a diabetic.
According to a source, other patients tried to wake him up for mid-day snacks at noon, but there was no response from him. Nurses, who were deployed at the hall, also did their best to revive him, but in vain.
Prasanth, a patient, said, “One of the patients informed the nurses, who tried to revive the elderly man by pressing his chest. But there was no response. Pulse oximeter reading showed oxygen saturation was almost nil. His body temperature was 103 deg C.”
While health department officials said the patient was monitored on Monday night and his vital parameters were stable, fellow patients said doctors and nurses were neither monitoring their vital parameters nor interacting with them. “Vital parameters are checked only during the admission that too by some patients who volunteer. After that nurses or doctors don’t monitor us to find how our symptoms are,” said another patient, Naveen, who was admitted on Saturday with fever after he tested positive for the virus.
The patients said they were hardly getting the daily dose of two vitamin C and zinc tablets. N Shiva, a patient at the E hall of the centre, said, “The nurses don’t ask us if we have medicines. They just give us a paracetamol whenever we approach them with any complaints. Though medicines and masks are available, they don’t give them to us.”
He said officials were also not monitoring the vital parameters of patients with comorbidities like the one who died on the day. “Whatever they fill in their charts is made-up. The only reason we are here is to ensure we don’t infect others at home.”
Two weeks ago, when there were growing complaints on unhygienic toilets and surroundings, the city corporation and health department had moved the patients who raised them to home isolation.