In a shocking incident, the body of a 27-year-old tuberculosis patient who had tested positive for novel coronavirus was found in a toilet in TB Hospital in Mumbai’s Sewri. The patient’s body was found 14 days after he went missing even though the toilets are supposed to be cleaned regularly and were being used by others as well.
The BMC has ordered an inquiry and issued notice to at least 40 hospital staffers.
As per reports, the body was badly decomposed and the staffers could not identify the gender of the person. According to the hospital records, a 27-year-old patient, named Suryabhan Yadav, was missing from the same ward since October 4.
‘We had filed a missing report then. But it is common for TB patients to go absconding from hospital,’ Superintendent Dr Lalitkumar Anande said.
Yadav was admitted to the hospital after he tested positive for COVID-19 on September 30. It is suspected that on October 4 he went to the toilet and collapsed due to breathlessness.
Hospital management said that nobody complained of a foul smell until October 18 when a ward boy said that one of the three locked cubicles was stinking.
He climbed in the next cubicle to look over the wall and found the body on the toilet floor. The hospital then informed the police and sent the body to KEM hospital for a post-mortem.
‘The toilets are cleaned thrice in a day. Sometimes it is occupied by patients so the cleaner goes away. But patients use those toilets regularly, and should have smelt the body. We have issued notices to all staffers on duty in ward,’ Anande said.
Dr Harish Pathak, head of forensic department at KEM hospital, said that Yadav died due to natural causes.
Senior police inspector Sunil Sohoni of RAK Marg police station said, ‘We will call hospital staffers for questioning to understand how this happened. We initiated an investigation to determine if there is any foul play.’
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