The suicide of a Covid patient at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) on Saturday, the latest in a long list of glaring lapses in the government-run hospital, has once again brought the hospital administration in the crosshairs of the state’s health authorities.
The patient, a resident of Garhwa, hanged himself using a towel at a stone’s throw from the main isolation centre where all Covid patients are treated, at 3am on Saturday. And none of the RIMS authorities got to know about the incident until dawn, sources working at the hospital said.
While the local police lodged a case of unnatural death, there was no committee set up at the hospital level to probe the matter and troubleshoot the frequent lapses.
RIMS acting director Dr Manju Gari refused to comment on Saturday’s suicide on the premises of the hospital.
A member of the Covid-19 task force at RIMS said that the victim would have appeared in the CCTV camera installed outside the isolation ward, and proper monitoring of the CCTV footage could have saved his life. “We can call it a security lapse,” he said requesting anonymity.
RIMS’s run so far as a Covid hospital has been riddled with similar incidents of negligence wherein patients could have been saved had health workers acted promptly. Till now, two Covid patients have died in the hospital after falling in the toilet. On July 19, a 70-year-old fell in the toilet of the ICU of RIMS and died. In a rerun of the incident, another Covid patient from Dhanbad could not survive a fall in the same toilet on August 13.
The coordinator of RIMS’ Covid-19 task force, Dr Prabhat Kumar, said that the two patients died of hypoxia, a condition in which a person’s body or a particular organ is deprived of sufficient oxygen. “Since the virus affects the lungs of a patient, hypoxia can be a common cause of death for Covid patients,” said Kumar. “The chances of cardiac arrest also increase in Covid patients,” he added.
Kumar said that a high-level meeting was held at RIMS after Covid patients died while using the toilet. “Learning from our mistakes, we have made it mandatory for every Covid patient to inform an attendant before going to the toilet,” he added.
Incidents of patients fleeing the RIMS isolation centre have also been reported. On June 16, parents of a Covid-infected toddler fled the hospital with their child in an auto-rickshaw and were eventually held at Gomoh, about 130 km from the capital.
Besides, RIMS has also reported cases of absconding Covid patients in the month of March. “The security has been beefed up after incidents of patients fleeing the isolation ward were reported,” said RIMS superintendent Dr Vivek Kashyap.
RIMS saw a change in senior management in the middle of a pandemic when former director Dr D.K. Singh was replaced by Dr Manju Gari as an acting director on June 27. Singh was spearheading the fight against Covid-19 since the first case of infection was reported here on March 31. He had also expressed his desire to continue serving as the director during the pandemic period.
Gari, on Sunday, refused to talk about the recent incidents in the hospital and asked this correspondent to speak with the authorities of the concerned department. The largest state-run hospital has a 100-bed isolation centre for Covid patients. RIMS was also the first government hospital in Jharkhand to start Covid testing and treatment.
