COVID-19 deaths: The rot in Kerala’s government medical college hospitals
The instances of Covid fatalities due to alleged negligence have laid bare the gaping holes in Kerala’s healthcare system. It was a nurse’s voice message to her colleagues, which talked about how lapses proved fatal for one particular patient who was on the road to recovery at the Government Medical College Hospital, Ernakulam, and casually mentioned how there have been similar slip-ups earlier, that started it all. Soon, a doctor at the hospital lent credence to the nurse’s claim.
Though the hospital tried to discredit both and suspended the nurse, the families of two more people who died while undergoing Covid-19 treatment there have voiced their suspicions. While the Ernakulam facility is facing public scrutiny at the moment, the rot in Kerala’s government medical colleges seems systemic.
For example, the Thiruvananthapuram hospital has been dealing with one mess after the other—from suicides to negligence to ill-treatment to mismanagement—since the Covid outbreak. The Pariyaram medical college in Kannur faced negligence allegations following the death of a 28-year-old excise department driver in June. His family released the voice clip of a phone conversation in which the young man is heard saying the hospital staff haven’t understood the seriousness of his condition.
The raging pandemic is certainly testing Kerala’s health infrastructure and the patience and endurance of its medical staff. Doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers truly deserve credit for putting up a relentless fight, but institutions like these—plagued by corruption, political interference, mismanagement and acute manpower shortage—aren’t making the job easier.
By suspending the nurse who spoke out, the government has sent out a message that it has no intention of addressing the critical issues undermining its medical institutions. The Ernakulam medical college authorities have, as expected, denied any wrongdoing, but it’s the government’s job to fix accountability. There must be a thorough investigation, preferably by an independent expert panel. If the present health crisis doesn’t goad the government into clearing the mess in its health institutions and turning them into efficient establishments that are professionally run, what else will?