The deaths of patients continued in the Government General Hospital on the second day on Thursday as four more patients died taking the total deaths 13 during the past 48 hours. 

The deaths of patients in the GGH drew flak from all quarters. However, Health Minister K Srinivas and Collector G Veerapandyan argued that all the deaths were natural as most of the deceased patients were old and some of them brought from various private hospitals after their condition turned to be very critical.The government issued GO 124 in 2010 upgrading the 300 bed hospital as 500 bed hospital, but infrastructure was not provided proportionately. As viral fevers rampant in the district, large number of patients comes to hospital daily and some of them are admitted as inpatients. CPM leader Jagadish said that though it is a 500 bed hospital, as many as 1200 are treated as inpatients. In Gynecology and pediatric wards, two patients are accommodated in one bed, which reflects the dismal state of the government hospital. Everyday about 2000 patients come to various OP wards. Moreover, there are only 168 doctors while the number of patients is in thousands. Even now 73 doctors posts are vacant in the hospital, he added. 

MLA Prabhakar Chowdary visited the hospital today and held a meeting with hospital Superintendent Dr.Jagannath. He assured that he would bring all the issues to the notice of the Chief Mister. Meanwhile, CPM activists led by their leaders staged a darna in front of the government hospital in protest against the indifference of the government in providing needed infrastructure to the hospital. The CPM leaders demanded the government to announce Rs.20 lakh compensation to each of the patient died in the hospital for the last 48 hours.