Doctors at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kalamassery, reiterated on Tuesday that there had been no lapse in the treatment given to COVID-19 patients at their facility, which is a designated COVID-19 hospital and the largest in the district.
Their clarification came after an audio clip sent out by a nursing officer at the hospital suggested that the staff's negligence had led to the death of a COVID-19 patient. In the audio clip, the nursing officer had said that a patient’s ventilator tube had not been placed properly.
Dr. A. Fathahudeen, pulmonologist and nodal officer for COVID-19 care at the hospital, said that the deceased patient mentioned in the audio clip, C. K. Haris, had been in a critical condition with pneumonia even on the day he died. The fact that he was seriously ill was communicated in the daily report sent from the hospital to the Director of Medical Education. He was on ventilator support and doctors had not considered moving him from the ICU to the ward.
Haris had been under treatment at the hospital for about three weeks and remained positive for the virus even when he died. He was overweight and had diabetes and hypertension, besides COVID-19 pneumonia, and obstructive sleep apnea that made it difficult for him to breathe when asleep. Haris was not on a mechanical ventilator but was on non-invasive ventilation where a tube is not inserted.
The nursing officer had explained that the audio message was only meant to keep her juniors aware, and it was routine to ask staff to be careful about oxygen supply, Dr. Ganesh Mohan, resident medical officer, told the media. The nursing officer was not directly involved in treating critically ill COVID-19 patients, had not interacted with the patients, and only played a supervisory role, Dr. Fathahudeen said.
A junior doctor had told TV channels on Tuesday that the audio clip was likely to be true and that ventilator tubes and oxygen masks were sometimes not placed properly. In their statement, hospital officials said that the junior doctor, working under the supervision of several specialists, had never alerted her seniors to such a problem. The junior doctor had also not been on duty when Haris died and doctors on duty at that time had not alerted the administration to any problems in his treatment, said a statement issued by Dr. Fathahudeen, Dr. V. Satheesh, Principal of the MCH, and Dr. Peter P. Vazhayil, Medical Superintendent.
False statements on purported inefficiency and lapses in treatment at the facility were being made in an attempt to besmirch the institution, their statement said.
Dr. Fathahudeen said that the patient’s family was asked to purchase a CPAP machine in order to help him breathe after his discharge from the hospital, since oxygen levels could fall even a few weeks after the patient’s recovery.
