Mistaken identity: Day on, axed PMCH health manager cries foul

A day after a health manager was terminated for her alleged laxity in establishing the identity of a deceased Covid-19 patient before handing over the body to the relatives of another patient, she said on Monday that she had been made a scapegoat while the guilty has been allowed to go scot-free

A day after a health manager was terminated for her alleged laxity in establishing the identity of a deceased Covid-19 patient before handing over the body to the relatives of another patient, she said on Monday that she had been made a scapegoat while the guilty has been allowed to go scot-free.

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In a representation to the superintendent of the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) on Monday, health manager Anjali Kumari claimed that establishing the identity of a deceased was not the mandate of a health manager, but that of nurses and duty doctors.

Kumari, who joined the PMCH in 2014, requested that she be reinstated immediately.

“Identifying the deceased is not the health manager’s responsibility, but that of nurses and doctors who are inside the Covid-19 ward and do the documentation before issuing the body carrying certificate,” said Kumari.

“As health managers, we do not go inside Covid-19 wards. The health manager’s role is limited to communication and management. I am supposed to communicate with the relatives of the patient or the deceased and facilitate transportation of the body,” she said.

“I have been made a scapegoat because of being on contractual service, I was the weakest link. The authorities have not taken any action against either doctors or nurses because they hold immense clout,” she said.

PMCH superintendent Dr IS Thakur, however, said “The responsibility of establishing the identity of a deceased, infected with Covid-19, lies with the health manager, as per the hospital standard operating procedure (SOP) for Covid-19, drafted during the tenure of my predecessor Dr Bimal Karak. The health managers did not protest then.”

“I will recommend action even against the doctors or healthcare worker, whosoever is found guilty,” added Dr Thakur.

The PMCH, he said, had on Monday set up a three-member inquiry committee, comprising heads of the departments of paediatrics Dr AK Jaiswal, medicine Dr Kaushal Kishore and anaesthesiology Dr BK Kashyap to identify the guilty. The committee has been asked to submit its report within three days, said Dr Thakur.

The PMCH also communicated to the Patna district magistrate (DM) Chandrashekhar Singh about the action taken against the health manager and constitution of a fact-finding committee. The DM had on Sunday sought a report within 24 hours from the principal of the medical college and hospital superintendent on the issue.

The PMCH had on Sunday issued a death certificate of Chunnu Kumar, 40, a resident of Barh, who is recuperating from a fracture and has contracted coronavirus.

Kumar, who was in the IJ ward, an ICU for Covid-19 patients, was shifted to the adjacent AB ward to make way for a critical Covid-19 patient, Raj Kumar Bhagat, 45, from Purnia, admitted to the hospital in the wee hours of Sunday.

Though the patients were swapped in the midnight, the authorities, however, forgot to make the necessary changes in their medical records. So, when Bhagat died Sunday morning, the hospital authorities took him for Kumar and called the latter’s relatives and handed over Bhagat’s body to them.

The trolley man, who handed over the body to Sadanand Sudhakar, Kumar’s cousin, claimed that the former had identified the body from a distance before it was taken to the crematorium where the relatives realised that it was a case of mistaken identity.