SALEM: A video of a nurse, purportedly downplaying the death of a patient under her watch, went viral on social media, sending top officials at the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital (GMKMCH) in Salem into an overdrive to contain the damage, here on Tuesday.
Soon after outrage started pouring in, GMKMCH dean Kanagaraj ordered a probe to find out if the death was due to the nurse’s negligence.
According to sources, Chandran (38), a painter from Shevapet in Salem, was referred to the GMKMCH from the government Hosur hospital on Saturday after he sustained grievous injuries in a fall off a building on Friday.
Chandran was admitted to the trauma ward at GMKMCH in the early hours of Saturday. However, he was shifted to the septic ward on Sunday as there was no friend or relative attending on him. Later in the day, Chandran’s relative called on him at the hospital, only to find him lying dead on his bed.
When they alerted the duty nurse, she came to the ward and did not touch the body to ascertain if Chandran had passed away. A few relatives recorded the exchange of words on their mobile phones and circulated it on social media like Whatsapp and Facebook.
In the video, relatives of Chandran ask the nurse to check whether the patient was dead. The nurse comes near Chandran and does not touch him. When relatives question her, she retorts she has to take care of eight wards and might not have checked on Chandran.
Meanwhile, GMKMCH doctors defended the nurse, blaming the deceased’s relatives for not accompanying him. “During nights, nurses monitor all the patients.
If there is someone with a patient, they can alert them in case of emergency,” they said. Speaking to Express, Dean Kanagaraj said preliminary inquiries revealed that the nurse was in charge of two wards, not eight as claimed in video.