Charges baseless
The youth’s saturation level had already lowered to 45% when he was admitted to the hospital on May 13. He was on constant oxygen support. Due to peripheral hypoxia, he wasn’t sure of what he was saying.
Ajay Joshi
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, May 17
Two days after a woman blamed the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for not supplying oxygen to her ailing mother, who later died while being shifted to another hospital, another woman today accused the hospital of not providing enough oxygen to her 24-year-old son, who also succumbed to the virus today.
Charges baseless
The youth’s saturation level had already lowered to 45% when he was admitted to the hospital on May 13. He was on constant oxygen support. Due to peripheral hypoxia, he wasn’t sure of what he was saying.
Gursevak Singh, 24, a resident of Nawanshahr, reportedly died of Covid-19 today. After his health deteriorated a few days ago, his mother admitted him to the PIMS. But after he died, his mother Kamaljit Kaur accused the PIMS authorities of negligence.
Sharing a screenshot of the WhatsApp chat with her son, Kamaljit claimed that her son texted her that the he wasn’t given oxygen for three days. “In the chat, my son has clearly said that despite being at the hospital, he believes that he would die. Nobody was even giving water to him. Even after facing difficulty in breathing, he was without oxygen support for three days. My young son has died due to the negligence of the hospital staff,” she said.
After doctors in Nawanshahr referred Gursewak to the PIMS, he was declared Covid-positive and also diagnosed with pneumonia.
In a similar incident, Jyoti, a resident of Jaimal Nagar, had also accused the hospital authorities of carelessness. She said her mother Radha Rani, 54, died after the hospital failed to provide her oxygen. He husband also claimed that despite low oxygen saturation level of the patient, an empty cylinder was attached with the oxygen pipe. It was also brought to the notice that the PIMS administration demanded Rs 98,000 from the kin of the patient before admission, flouting the price cap fixed by state government.
Amit Singh, administrative authority at PIMS, denied the charges, saying Gursevak was admitted to the hospital on May 13 and his saturation level had already lowered to 45 per cent, owing to which he was on constant oxygen support. “Due to peripheral hypoxia, he didn’t know what he was saying and in that condition he must have told his mother about insufficient oxygen provided to him.”