The RT-PCR test results of the 65-year-old man’s swab sample collected at East Midnapore’s Tamluk district hospital on Saturday night came back negative on Tuesday from Calcutta, three days after he died in an ambulance for the lack of beds at Panskura’s Boroma Covid Hospital.

The man’s rapid test result had shown he was Covid positive on Saturday, prompting Tamluk hospital authorities to refer him to Boroma Covid Hospital.

His RT-PCR sample were sent to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta the same night the rapid test was done.

East Midnapore health officials, however, claimed on Tuesday that their hospital’s rapid testing facilities were reliable and that a health worker had “erred” in collecting the swab sample.

The deceased man’s daughter said when his condition worsened on Saturday night, the family did press hospital authorities for a rapid test. “Now that the RT-PCR test of the same swab has come back negative today, we have bigger questions about the efficiency of the whole (testing) system,” she said.

“Had the rapid test come back negative, as we now see it should have, my father would have still been undergoing treatment at the Tamluk hospital, and more importantly, would have been alive,” she added.

The family had on Sunday blamed Tamluk district hospital superintendent Gopal Das for assuring them that they would find a bed at the Boroma Covid hospital late on Saturday night.

But now, after the RT-PCR came back negative, the issue is bigger than a hospital superintendent’s incompetence,” the daughter said.

Sources said Das had been pulled up by the district magistrate for three prior incidents since March. Das did not comment on the RT-PCR result.

Opposition leaders in the district have pressed for Das’s removal from the post. CPM district secretary Niranjan Sihi termed Das “unfit for the job” following Saturday’s incident.