The Superintendent of Government Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, has clarified that there was no vacant ventilator in the institution when the accident victim Murugan was brought to the MCH on August 6 in an advanced life-support ambulance.
Superintendent M.S. Sharmad denied reports that appeared in a section of the media that according to the statement given by the MCH authorities to the police, there were several vacant ventilators when Murugan was brought there.
The statement said the so-called “free or vacant ventilators” were, in fact, ones that had been kept on stand-by for patients who were undergoing surgery or were in the ICUs.
“These ventilators, though not connected to patients at that point in time when Murugan was brought in, were not “free” or “vacant” because these were designated ventilators which would become “free” only if those patients were moved out of the ICU. We said in our internal report that by our clinical assessment, the patient was brain-dead when he was brought to the MCH. His GCS score was 3 (the lowest possible score) at KIMS Hospital, Kottiyam itself, where he had been stabilised initially. (Glasgow Coma Scale describes the general level of consciousness in patients with traumatic brain injury. A GCS score of 8 or less defines a severe head injury.) “It is a fact that he was not a salvageable patient,” Deputy Superintendent, MCH, Joby John said.
