In Mumbai hospital, bodies placed near COVID-19 patients
A video purportedly showing bodies of COVID-19 victims lying unattended near coronavirus patients at a hospital in Mumbai has surfaced, following which a BJP MLA hit out at the Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmummbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
A video purportedly showing bodies of COVID-19 victims lying unattended near coronavirus patients at a civic-run hospital in Mumbai has surfaced, following which a BJP MLA hit out at the Shiv Sena-ruled Brihanmummbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).
Latching on to the video, BJP legislator Nitesh Rane said this shows that the BMC does not pay attention to the safety of patients.
In Sion hospital..patients r sleeping next to dead bodies!!!
This is the extreme..what kind of administration is this!
Very very shameful!! @mybmc pic.twitter.com/NZmuiUMfSW— nitesh rane (@NiteshNRane) May 6, 2020
The video purportedly showed some bodies lying near COVID-19 patients undergoing treatment at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in the Sion area of Mumbai. Rane tagged the video in a tweet on the micro-blogging site on Wednesday night.
“The Sion hospital has shown utmost negligence by letting COVID-19 patients sleep among the bodies of those who died of the same disease. The BMC boasts of being the richest civic body but pays no attention towards the safety of patients,” the BJP leader said on Thursday.
He noted that the hospital in Sion mostly gets patients from Dharavi, the biggest slum area in the country.
“Is this how we treat our working class? Such carelessness of the medical staff and the Sion hospital could result in further spread of coronavirus infection,” he said.
As the video stirred controversy, the hospital’s dean Dr. Pramod Ingale said relatives of the those who died of COVID-19 are reluctant to take the bodies.
“That is the reason why the bodies were kept there unattended. We have now removed the bodies and are probing the matter,” he said.
Asked why the bodies were not shifted to a mortuary, Ingale said, “There are 15 slots in the hospital mortuary of which 11 are already filled. If we shift all the bodies to the mortuary, it will be a problem for bodies of those who died of causes other than COVID-19.”
Till Wednesday, Mumbai reported 10,527 COVID-19 cases and 412 deaths.
