The Jalgaon-based Nehete family witnessed endless tragedy in just nine days amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harshal Nehete’s 60-year-old mother, Tila Nehete, succumbed to coronavirus as she waited for an ICU bed for six hours at the Jalgaon civil hospital. Then on Wednesday, June 10, his grandmother’s partially decomposed body was found on the floor of a toilet cubicle in the same hospital.

The grandmother, Malati Nehete, 82, was missing since June 2. She had been admitted in the hospital with coronavirus symptoms, and the hospital staff claimed that ‘she had simply walked away’.

The toilet door was broken open only after other patients complained that the stench was unbearable.

‘Such episodes shake the faith of the public in the system. I have arranged for COVID-19 treatment in two private hospitals and all critical patients will be shifted there,’ The Indian Express quoted District Collector Avinash Dhakne as saying.

While a detailed enquiry has been ordered, five officials of the hospital, including Dean Dr B S Khaire, were suspended.

District records show that three other coronavirus patients suffering from breathlessness lost their lives while attempting to reach the toilet in the isolation ward. The isolation wards are not facilitated with bedpans for patients, and according to some senior officials, ‘nurses and staffers are not willing to touch patients’.

Despite being COVID-positive, Malati was mistakenly put in the civil hospital’s suspected COVID-19 cases ward.

‘We can afford treatment in a private hospital, but rules did not allow COVID-19 patients to get admitted there. Who is responsible for this (Malati’s) death?’ Anil Nehete, a close relative, said.

A complaint of medical negligence has been filed against the hospital by Pratibha Shinde of the NGO Lok Sangarsh Morcha. ‘Patients gasp for oxygen, ask for food. Nobody is here to look after them,’ she said.

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