81-year-old dies of Covid-19 after being made to wait 12 hours for an ambulance

An 81-year-old man died of Covid-19 on Wednesday, after being made to wait for nearly 12 hours for an ambulance to arrive after his samples tested positive on Tuesday

An 81-year-old man died of Covid-19 on Wednesday, after being made to wait for nearly 12 hours for an ambulance to arrive after his samples tested positive on Tuesday night, his family members alleged.

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The man’s son said they spent the excruciating hours, between his test results returning and an ambulance arriving at their Rohini residence, making frantic phone calls to the national Covid helpline, the Delhi helpline, as well as the CATS emergency ambulance number — to absolutely no avail.

“We knew of the various helpline numbers. When we called the national helpline number, we were given the Delhi state helpline number. Thereafter, we called the number hundreds of times, but no one would take the call,” the son said.

They called the CATS ambulance helpline number multiple times, but no one received their calls, he alleged.

He said umpteen tweets to several government officials too went unheeded.

Even after an ambulance arrived on Wednesday morning to take him to Lok Nayak hospital, the family alleged that the man was made to wait in the ambulance for nearly an hour, without even being admitted to the hospital. His family claimed he died in the ambulance itself.

A government official said, “The man was already dead by the time a doctor arrived at the scene.”

Health officials HT spoke to claimed few ambulances were in service, as most drivers had parked their vehicles and did not want to report to duty, for fear of contracting the contagious disease.

“We have been trying to persuade ambulance unions to send men to work, but they are refusing. However, while there could be hours of delay in providing ambulance service, we can only assure the patients that they will eventually arrive,” said the official.

The official, however, refused to comment on any specific case. Another official from CATS too did not respond to queries related to the alleged delay and death.

A nightmare of 12 hours

The family’s travails began more than two weeks ago when, on April 18, the 81-year-old man, a retired teacher, developed a fever and cough. He lived with five other family members, in Rohini Sector 15, and since the lockdown, only the man’s son would step out to buy essential items.

With no inkling that he could have contracted the coronavirus disease, his family gave him medicines for the fever and cough syrup.

“We thought it was the usual old-age ailments. The thought that he could be infected with Covid-19 didn’t occur to us,” said his son, a businessman.

When his condition didn’t improve, they got in touch with the family physician, who prescribed further general medication.

Finally, on Monday, the family got him tested for Covid-19. “On Tuesday, around 10 p, we received his test result that said he was positive,” his son said.

Their problems only mounted from here on.

Family said they spent the 12 hours desperate, trying everything they possibly could.

“For much of that time, my father was speaking to us. He felt weak, but he was alive and conscious. He could have lived had we received timely help,” his son said.

“We were afraid to take him to the hospital in our car. We had no protective equipment, except face masks,” he added.

The man’s grandson tweeted of their plight, tagging government authorities, but was met with only silence. He finally tweeted on Wednesday morning, “My grandfather is corona positive and there is no reply from govt authorities hence I will take him to hospital”.

By Wednesday morning, the family had geared up to move him to hospital in their own car. As a last ditch, they contacted a surveillance officer in the area who helped arrange a CATS ambulance, which arrive around two hours later, the son said.

But the ambulance only brought more trouble with it.

“Two men wearing PPEs [personal protective equipment] arrived outside our home in an ambulance around 10am, but they asked us to bring my father downstairs from our flat on the second floor. They just refused to help,” he alleged.

A video shot by a neighbour showed the elderly man sitting on the staircase as a few members of his family tried to lift him up to take him downstairs. “We decided to ignore our own safety to save my father. The ambulance staff neither helped get my father on the stretcher, nor lift the stretcher into the ambulance,” he alleged.

The health official said many of the ambulance staff who continue to provide their services are afraid to go beyond their “basic duties”.

The family said that as the ambulance drove away with the sick man, his son and grandson ran back into their home to bathe and decontaminate themselves before driving to the hospital in their car.

“When we reached Lok Nayak Hospital, I found my father lying motionless in the ambulance. No one attended to him, and he wasn’t even admitted to the hospital. By the time a doctor arrived, my father had died. The doctor glanced at my father from a distance and declared him dead,” the son alleged.

While the hospital refused to comment on the specific incident, a doctor at Lok Nayak Hospital who asked not to be identified, said the standard procedure is to first record the case histories of the patients and their attendants before admitting them. “We are adhering by the guidelines when it comes to admitting patients,” said the doctor.

While refusing to comment on this specific case, the health official said it was “unlikely” that a delay in hospitalisation had caused the death. “There is no treatment for this disease. Even at the hospital, there wouldn’t have been much that we could have done to save such a patient,” the official said.

As for the dead man’s family, they believe the death was avoidable. “I don’t think my father died of Covid-19. He died due to an avoidable delay,” the son said.

He was cremated later in the day.

The 81-year-old is survived by his wife, his son, the son’s wife, and two of their children and all five now face a wait for their test results to return.