A 42-year-old patient, who was reportedly bitten by rodents while undergoing treatment in the state-run Mahatma Gandhi Memorial (MGM) hospital in Telangana’s Warangal district six days ago, died at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in Hyderabad around midnight on Friday, doctors said.
Kadarla Srinivas, who had been admitted to the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (RICU) of the MGM with serious lung, kidney and liver ailments on March 26, was shifted to the NIMS Hyderabad on Friday morning as his condition deteriorated.
“He had been in a comatose state when he was brought to the NIMS and his condition was critical. He breathed his last around midnight on Friday,” a senior doctor at the NIMS said.
Srinivas, a goldsmith from Bhimaram village on the outskirts of Hanamkonda town, had been in the news when the local media reported about rodents nibbling his fingers and toes when he was lying in an unconscious state on the hospital bed in the RICU ward at the MGM.
His younger brother Srikanth, who visited him on March 27, found the patient bleeding from his feet and fingers and rats were moving around the bed. “I immediately brought it to the notice of the hospital staff, who applied a bandage to the injured parts. They tried to hush up the incident saying my brother was in critical condition,” Srinivas told the reporters on Thursday.
On March 31 morning when Srikanth went to the RICU to see his brother, he found the rats on the bed and his fingers were bleeding.
Immediately, Srikanth informed his relatives, who staged a dharna in the hospital demanding action against the negligent staff.
When the local media questioned MGM Hospital superintendent, Dr B Srinivasa Rao, he admitted that there was a menace of rodents in the RICU block, and assured that steps would be taken to get rid of the rodents.
Warangal district Additional Collector K Sreevatsa visited the hospital on Thursday and pulled up the hospital staff. He ordered an inquiry into the incident and directed that such incidents should not recur.
On the same day, state health minister T Harish Rao ordered the transfer of the MGM hospital superintendent and suspended two other doctors, “holding them responsible for the incident”.
Later, the government directed that Srinivas be shifted to NIMS in Hyderabad for better treatment on Friday.
