The indefinite strike by over 700 outsourced employees at Gandhi Hospital on Tuesday led to over two hours delay in declaring the death a COVID-19 patient and shifting of his body to the mortuary on Tuesday. The COVID-19 patient who was admitted in Intermediate Care (IMC) of the hospital died on Tuesday early afternoon.
Usually, after a COVID-19 patient dies, it takes two hours to shift the body from the ward to the hospital’s mortuary. In case of the patient who died on Tuesday afternoon, it took four hours to complete the process.
Doctors from the hospital said that after a COVID patient dies, a few medicines are administered as a last resort. If the medicines do not work, they check for brain stem reflections. “When we take ECG, the line (on monitor) should be flat. The process of declaring death takes 45 minutes to one hour,” said Dr. M Raja Rao, Superintendent of Gandhi Hospital. Thereafter, the body is taken to mortuary. Photos of the deceased are taken. One is pasted on the body bag, another is kept for records. Entry and exit registers have to be filled with details of the person who died. It takes around two hours from the time a person dies, to complete the process.
In case of the patient who died on Tuesday afternoon, the process got stretched to four hours, according to preliminary information with the hospital’s authorities. Dr Rao said that strike by the outsourced employees led to the delay. On Tuesday, regular employees had to manage the patients.
“We had to manage six Intensive Care Units (ICU), and all other wards with the available workers. As we concentrated on patient care and treatment, clearing the dead body got delayed by around four hours as per preliminary details. But it did not get delayed for seven or eight hours. And bodies do not putrify in this time,” the hospital’s Superintendent Dr Rao said.
Indefinite strike
The 210 outsourced nurses who were on protest from past four days were joined by over 600 outsourced employees at Gandhi Hospital on Tuesday demanding that their jobs be regularised.
“The outsourced employees include 110 patient care providers, 200 sanitation staff, 100 security staff and over 200 Class-IV employees. They will be on indefinite protest from Wednesday till their demands are met,” said J Kumaraswamy, president of Telangana United Medical & Health Employees Union. The protesting staff involved in COVID-19 duties are demanding hike in salaries and regularisation of jobs.
