A 62-year-old man, who was suffering from an acute asthma, died allegedly due to negligence of hospital staff at the Government General Hospital in Vijayawada on Tuesday. Hussain Sharif, a resident of Housing Board Colony, was brought to the GGH with a severe asthma attack.
He was admitted to the Acute Medical Ward and put on oxygen. When there was not much improvement in his condition, relatives decided to shift him to a private hospital against the advice of the doctors.
The relatives reportedly took the decision to shift him as they did not find staff/doctors attending on him.
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When the doctors and paramedics were not around the relatives reportedly removed the oxygen mask and tried to shift him. The patient died when he was being brought down the steps from the first floor where the Acute Medical Ward is located.
The casualty and several of the wards wore a desolate look with inpatients leaving for private hospitals. Junior doctors, who were on strike demanding implementation of the bipartite agreement, boycotted emergency services from Monday evening.
While an average of six to eight deaths are reported at the hospital in a day, the number of deaths reported on Tuesday was 11. The deaths included five children, two of them neonates who were referred to Guntur General Hospital.
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The two neonates, however, had to be brought back as there were no doctors at the Guntur General Hospital either because of the strike. There is scope for increase in the number of deaths due to negligence because most of them occurred in the early hours as per hospital records.
Meanwhile, the agitating junior doctors went in a procession to the Post Office near Executive Club and mailed postcards to AICC president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pranab Mukherjee.