BENGALURU: In a press meet held on Thursday afternoon, Minister of Medical Education K Sudhakar said the second patient who succumbed to COVID-19 in Karnataka was turned away from the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases due to the lack of beds.
"She was a senior citizen who travelled from Andhra to Gauribidanur and then came to Bengaluru. She had a travel history of going to the Middle East. As the beds were full at RGICD, she was shifted to Bowring at 12 pm in the night and passed away at 1 am in Bowring," Sudhakar said.
Even as the cases in Karnataka are not as high as Maharashtra or Kerala, the state already finds itself running short of beds. This lapse also raises questions as to why the authorities were not aware of the lack of availability of beds before shifting the patient to RGICD. Time would not have been lost if the patient was directly taken to Bowring after confirming the availability of beds.
Sudhakar said that Karnataka would be following the three T's -- trace, test and treatment. 1,25,000 international passengers are being quarantined at home or in mass quarantine centres in the state as of now.