'Admission of serious COVID-19 patients behind high mortality'

The Ahmedabad civil hospital

in Gujarat on Friday said that the high mortality rate in COVID-19 cases and low recovery rate at the facility is mostly because serious coronavirus patients with high chances of death are admitted there.

Civil superintendent Dr M M Prabhakar also claimed that unlike many other hospitals which mostly admit asymptomatic patients and give discharge in three days if the patient doesn't have fever, treatment of serious patients at this facility goes on for over 10 days.

"We mostly admit serious coronavirus patients. We also admit patients who were turned away by other hospitals. We first keep them on oxygen support and then on ventilator. The treatment of such serious patients go on for over 10 days. We give them discharge only after they test negative for the infection," he said.

 

"Other hospitals admit asymptomatic patients and give discharge in three days as per the new policy. This is not the case with us. But we admit serious patients and treat them for many days. So it shows difference in the recovery rate," Prabhakar added.

According to him, the number of deaths at the civil hospital "appear high" because many patients who are brought there were either already dead or die shortly after admission.

This government-run hospital located in Asarwa area of the city is considered as the largest civil hospital in Asia.

The hospital's defence came days after a data shared by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) revealed that nearly 50 per cent of the total coronavirus infection deaths in Gujarat so far have been reported from this civil hospital.

Out of the total 749 COVID-19 deaths reported across Gujarat till May 20, as many as 351 patients succumbed to the disease in the Ahmedabad civil hospital, as per the data shared by the city civic body.

The other majorgovernment facilities where coronavirus patients are being treated in Ahmedabad are the Sola civil hospital and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (SVP) Hospital.

Till May 20, as many as 351 COVID-19 patients died at the civil hospital, while 338 have been discharged from there after recovery so far, according to the data provided by the AMC.

This data suggested that unlike other two hospitals in the city, more people with COVID-19 had died than recovered and given discharge from the civil hospital.

Congress MLA from Ahmedabad Gyasuddin Shaikh on Tuesday raised questions on the high mortality and low discharge rate at the civil hospital, and sought the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) in the matter.

In a letter to the NHRC, Shaikh had alleged that negligence and improper treatment given to COVID-19 patients in the Ahmedabad civil hospital is leading to high number of deaths.