The Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) is witnessing late admissions of COVID-19 patients, many resulting in the death on the day of their admission.
The media bulletin issued by the Health Department in the last several days showed that many patients died on the day of their admission.
The number of such deaths were high in CMCH compared to the Government Medical College and ESI Hospital and private hospitals.
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CMCH Dean P. Kalidas said that the hospital did an internal analysis after seeing many such cases involving late admissions. “1.6 to 1.9 days was the mean duration we got when we analysed the time taken between admission and death in the case of late admissions. Some persons, who were brought dead to the hospital, were later tested positive for COVID-19,” he said.
Late admissions of COVID-19 patients coupled with other complications they had such as chronic kidney disease, type II diabetes, bilateral covid pneumonia and severe hypertension had led to those deaths.
According to Dr. Kalidas, late admissions could have happened when people ignored symptoms of the disease.
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He denied allegations that private hospitals were referring serious cases of COVID-19 to CMCH.
“Conducting COVID-19 test on persons who are brought dead to the hospital is important. If such deceased are not tested for COVID-19 and any one of them was indeed infected with disease, people who handle the body and those who take part in the funeral can contract the disease,” said Dr. Kalidas.
ESI Hospital Dean A. Nirmala said that the hospital had a few number of patients who died on the same day of admission.