Infected with coronavirus, this Mumbai family died due to poor healthcare system

Mumbai : It took mere nine days to completely destroy a family where coronavirus had infected some members, but their death is more because of the poor healthcare system.

It all began when Harshal Nehete's mother and grandmother contracted the virus. According to a news report by Indian Express, Nehete lost his mother Tina, 60, as she failed to get an ICU bed despite being in queue for around six hours at the Jalgaon civil hospital.

And on Wednesday, partially decomposed body of Nehete's grandmother was found curled on the floor of a toilet cubicle in the same hospital.

The family had reported that Nehete's grandmother Malati Nehete (82) was missing since June 2. Staff at the hospital, where she had been admitted with Covid-19 symptoms, had insisted that "she had simply walked away".

For eight days she was inside the cubical and no one from the hospital staff went there to open it. The IE reported that the staff broke open the door on Wednesday only after patients in the ward who were using the other cubicles in the toilet complained that they could no longer bear the stench.

The staff, including Dean Dr B S Khaire, has been suspended for negligence. Sanjay Mukherjee, Secretary, Medical Education, said a detailed inquiry had been ordered.

The report stated that Nehete is a marketing executive who lives in Pune. His wife is in the final month of her pregnancy. His father Tulsiram is recovering from Covid-19 in a private hospital in Nashik. No one in the family could attend the funerals of his mother and grandmother.