The relatives of some patients who died during treatment at the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital recently, have alleged that the apathy and negligence on the part of doctors and nursing staff there were responsible for the death of their loved ones.

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These allegations come days after the Gujarat High Court criticised the city civil hospital over its functioning amid the coronavirus crisis. This facility in Ahmedabad is considered the largest civil hospital in Asia, where hundreds of doctors and nurses work.

A man has alleged that he was asked by the hospital staff to manually pump air to keep alive her 81-year-old grandmother, before her death on May 27. Another man also claimed that the doctors did not even bother to take samples of her grandmother to ascertain if she was COVID-19 positive or not. "Our house is in Dani Limda area, which is a containment zone. We took our grandmother to the civil hospital on May 26 night after she felt uneasy," he said. "She was first kept on the ground floor of the hospital and put on ventilator support during midnight. But despite my repeated requests, doctors did not collect her samples to check if she was coronavirus positive," he alleged.

According to to the man, when she was being shifted to another ward on the third floor on May 27 morning, the on- duty doctor handed him a bag and asked him to keep pumping air manually till a ventilator is attached again after reaching the ward. "When I requested them that it is a professional's job and someone from the hospital should do it, no one listened. Some of them even laughed at me. I even noticed that the air filter was choked. But nobody cared to listen. When we finally reached the ward on the third floor, the doctors there declared her dead and did not even make any effort to save her life," he alleged.

When asked about the man's allegations, civil superintendent Dr M M Prabhakar claimed ignorance saying he does not recollect if such incident has taken place at the hospital. In another incident, a relative of a coronavirus positive patient circulated a video claiming that doctors of COVID-19 ward in the civil hospital did not inform him that his mother, who died on May 24, will be put on ventilator support. "Why was I not informed that my mother will be put on ventilator? Since you forcibly tried to insert the pipe, she started bleeding and eventually died. As per the rules you must have informed me that she will be put on ventilator support," a man can be heard talking to a doctor in the video, apparently shot inside the COVID-19 ward. Commenting about this incident, Prabhakar said the woman was a COVID-19 patient and died a few days back. "As per the rules and guidelines, doctors are empowered to do everything necessary to save a patient's life," Prabhakar added.

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