Bankisole Covid hospital help desk offers little help
By Express News Service
BARIPADA: Poor information flow and lack of trasparency from Covid hospitals has added to the agony of family members of patients. A family received death news of a kin, admitted to Bankisole Covid hospital, three days late as the help desk at the facility kept giving them misleading information.
Sources said, a 78-year-old man from Khiripada within Betnoti police limits was admitted to the Covid hospital on Wednesday last after testing positive. On Friday, his family members called up the hospital to enquire about his health and were told that he was recovering well and out of danger. They were also told that he would be discharged the next day.
When the ambulance did not drop the patient home by Saturday evening, anxious kin called up the help desk again. They were again told that that the patient would be released once ambulance was available. The family called up again on Sunday afternoon only to receive the same answer. Suspecting something was amiss, they contacted one of the fellow patients who informed that the said patient was not in the ward since Friday. The patient’s son Ajit then contacted the help desk again to verify and to his horror, was told that his father passed away three days back.
The anguished family rushed to the hospital staff but none of the authorities reportedly was willing to meet, let alone furnish a satisfactory explanation on the patient’s death. Alleging medical negligence, Ajit said the hospital was responsible for his father’s death. “We would have shifted my father to another hospital if the doctors had given us correct information on time,” he said.
In a similar incident, family members of a railway employee from Rairangpur municipality, who too was admitted to the Covid hospital here, got to know about his death three days late on Sunday. Last year too, similar incidents were reported. Contacted, Collector Vineet Bhardwaj said he has received complaints of poor coordination of the help desk at Bankisole Covid hospital. “The district administration will soon provide separate staff for the Covid hospital for better patient coordination,” he said.