No bed, 62-year-old man dies on road in Vaishali

Ghaziabad: A 62-year-old man from Delhi, suffering from a health complication, died on a road in Ghaziabad’s Vaishali on Monday evening, while his 37-year-old son was struggling to get him admitted to a hospital in Delhi or Ghaziabad

Ghaziabad: A 62-year-old man from Delhi, suffering from a health complication, died on a road in Ghaziabad’s Vaishali on Monday evening, while his 37-year-old son was struggling to get him admitted to a hospital in Delhi or Ghaziabad. The victim’s family said that the man had tested negative for Covid-19, but his CT scan reports indicated a severe infection in his lungs, with almost Covid-like symptoms.

HT Image

The victim, identified as Surjan Singh, was a native of Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand, and had retired as a lab assistant of the Delhi education department. His son, Yashvir Singh, said that he tried to admit his father to two government hospitals in Delhi, before successfully admitting him at a private hospital in East Delhi, where the doctors performed his CT scan.

“I went to two government hospitals in Delhi on April 18, but they did not admit him due to the unavailability of beds. My father had tested Covid-negative. The CT scan reports indicated that he had an infection in his lungs, and the doctors at the East Delhi hospital asked me to admit my father to a Covid facility... He also suffered from blood pressure complications and diabetes,” said Singh, adding that he took his father to hospitals in Ghaziabad, Kaushambi, and Vaishali on Monday, but couldn’t admit his father to a hospital.

“One of the hospitals was helpful enough to provide him oxygen support for some time as the oxygen level in his body was constantly decreasing. We both were on a bike, and I had been monitoring his oxygen level every hour... The Vaishali hospital told us that no beds were available there, but I could see ambulances arriving at the premises with patients. While driving, I felt that my father suffered two shocks when we were at the internal main road in Vaishali, and I stopped the bike... My father died on the road,” he said.

”With the help of some passersby, we took him under a tree. Then I called up my family members, and also a private ambulance. The local councillor of Vaishali, too, came for help. Finally, we reached Delhi with his body in the evening,” he added. Yashvir had lost his job at a pharma company in Sahibabad in 2020, and opened a photocopy shop in East Delhi, which is now closed amid the week-long lockdown in Delhi.

Meanwhile, Manoj Goel, councillor from Vaishali, said that the family was running helplessly, and found no beds, and the patient died in unfortunate circumstances. “His father’s body was lying on the road, and people looked at it and passed by. Finally, an ambulance arrived, and the body was taken to Delhi,” Goel said.

Dr Ashish Agarwal, president, Indian Medical Association (IMA), Ghaziabad chapter, termed the incident as “unfortunate”, and said that the lack of bed availability is a major issue across Delhi-NCR. “Most of the hospitals are overburdened, and the lack of bed availability is a major issue. There are instances where asymptomatic patients get beds. Beds are also booked beforehand, through sources. And, when needy patients arrive, they struggle to get beds for treatment,” Agarwal said.

Dr NK Gupta, chief medical officer (CMO), said that there’s a shortage of ICU beds in hospitals. “The family, on some account, could not reach our control room or our health department. Otherwise, we could have arranged for a bed for the patient,” he said.