In a shocking video that has been doing rounds on internet, coronavirus patients can be seen lying beside to the corpses wrapped in body bags, who died due to COVID-19, in a Mumbai hospital.
The video purportedly showed bodies of COVID-19 victims lying unattended near coronavirus patients who have been undergoing treatment at Sion Hospital, which is run by the city’s municipal corporation and is one of the major hospitals handling COVID-19 patients in Mumbai.
On Wednesday, a BJP MLA Nitesh Rane posted the video on social media with the comment – “In Sion hospital, patients are sleeping next to dead bodies!!! This is extreme. What kind of administration is this! Very very shameful!!”
“The Sion hospital has shown utmost negligence by letting COVID-19 patients sleep among the bodies of those who died of the same disease. The BMC boasts of being the richest civic body but pays no attention towards the safety of patients,” the BJP leader said on Thursday.
Following the controversial video, the hospital’s dean Dr. Pramod Ingale said that the relatives of those who died of COVID-19 are reluctant to take the bodies. “That is the reason why the bodies were kept there unattended. We have now removed the bodies and are probing the matter,” he said. “There are 15 slots in the hospitals mortuary, of which 11 are already filled. If we shift all the bodies to the mortuary, it will be a problem for bodies of those who died of causes other than COVID-19,” he added.
After the dean’s statement, BJP MLA Rane tweeted stating “So the dean of Sion hospital accepts the video and says the relatives don’t come to claim the bodies so we have kept them there. What should we as Mumbaikars expect from the BMC after this? Private hospitals are not accepting patients and Gov hospitals are in a mess!”
Meanwhile, former chief minister of Maharashtra and BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis decried the incident stating “The incident at Sion Hospital is extremely serious. It is a very serious matter that patients have to be treated on the side of a corpse. The question is whether Mumbaikars have no guardian. The government should take immediate action and ensure that such an incident does not happen again.”
So far, Maharashtra has recorded the highest coronavirus cases with 16,758 positive cases and a death toll of 651.
