Coronavirus in Gujarat: Dead nearly two weeks back, family gets SMS 'patient moved to different hospital'

A 30-year-old, Sagar Shah, was still grieving his father's death from COVID-19 when his phone buzzed with text messages saying that his father "Kishorebhai Heeralal Shah has been transferred to COVID hospital, Asarwa, Ahmedabad on May 30 at 6:38 pm." His father Kishorebhai had passed away on May 16.

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"I was shocked and equally pained. I realised it was another example of sheer negligence on part of the hospitals. I myself cremated my father on May 16, took photographs," says Sagar, a bit angrily. These messages only reminded of his struggle to claim the dead body of his 64-year-old father from the civil hospital and visiting the police station to file an FIR for the jewellery his father was wearing were stolen along with Rs10,000 cash from his wallet.

He said that it was following the intervention of Congress MLA Imran Khedawala that he could get information that his father had died and eventually the dead body was handed over after hours of wait.

Sagar, who works as a tuition teacher with his brother in Dariapur, filmed his anguish in a short video message and circulated it which has gone viral on social media. He alleged that his case is yet another example of "gross negligence" that keeps coming out in public domain explaining the plight of people whose relatives were admitted to civil hospital and Gujarat Cancer and Research Institute (GCRI), which, too, is located in the same campus. It is the same hospital, the Gujarat high court last week termed as "dungeon."

Resident Medical Officer, Dr Sanjay Kapadia, COVID-19 Hospital, responded that "There were two patients with similar names which created the confusion." He also said that "There was an error in data entry after the server went down which has been rectified."

A day before, a similar incident was reported in the city when Nilesh Nikte, a resident of Nikol, received calls that his father-in-law Devram Bhisiker's covid report came back negative and he would be shifted to a non-covid ward. Nilesh was, too, shocked since Devram had passed away on May 29 afternoon and was cremated by Nilesh himself.

"I was so taken aback. For a moment, it occurred to me that I might have cremated someone else. But, the subsequent inquiry revealed that the hospital authority had not updated its report which led to this shocking confusion," Nilesh told this paper while adding, "I approached media since my community members had started raising questions on me for mishandling my wife's family's matter."

The state government later issued a release stating that the person from the call centre informed the family members about negative report without knowing that Devram had already passed away. The government also denied that there was "irresponsibility or carelessness" behind the incident.