Chaos at Alappuzha Medical College, as hospital authorities handed over a wrong, dead body to the family.
On Friday, in the Alappuzha district of Kerala, The Medical College courted controversy by stating an alive patient as dead. By mistake, the authorities informed the family of a covid patient that he had died during the treatment.
The relatives arranged all set up for the funeral; condolence posters were circulated and arrived at the hospital to receive the body. The authorities told them their patient was still alive and under intensive care.
Employee confused with patients
Relatives of Ramanan (47) of Pallikal in Kayamkulam were provided with false news regarding his death by the hospital authorities. The hospital contacted them around 5 pm on the evening of Friday to convey this. After making all necessary arrangements, the relatives reached the hospital by Saturday morning and realised Ramanan was still alive.
Ramanan was admitted to the Alappuzha Medical College on the 29th of August as he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. From the day he was admitted, he was under a ventilator as he was having trouble breathing.
On the other hand, another patient of the same name, Ramanan (70) of Krishnapuram in Kayamkulam, died due to COVID-19, whose body was handed over mistakenly to the relatives of dead patient Kumaran of Cherthala on Friday evening. Kumaran’s relatives received this body and took it for burial.
The misunderstanding came to light only after Ramanan’s relatives reached the hospital. In the meantime, Kumaran’s relatives realised the mistake and returned to the hospital with the body of Ramanan (70).
Action taken against the acts
Hospital authorities declared that they had not initiated action against anyone in giving the wrong body to the Kumaran’s relatives since they had already identified the body before receiving it.
Superintendent of Alappuzha Medical College, Dr Sajeev George Pulikkal, said that the authorities had removed the hospital employee who passed the wrong information to the relatives from the duty. They also allotted Deputy Superintendent Dr A. Abdul Salam to investigate more details of this incident.
