A Nagpur Government Medical College patient has dissimulated his medical history and contacted more than 30 doctors and other physicians before testing for COVID-19.
NAGPUR, Maharashtra: nine physicians, after having been admitted to cerebrovascular complications, were put under quarantine in Nagpour’s larger hospital, the Government Medical College, concealed that his son, with whom he was in contact was being treated for COVID-19. The patient himself subsequently screened for coronavirus.
Founded in 1947, Nagpur GMC is one of two nodal hospitals in Nagpur to treat COVID-19 patients and acts as a regional hub across Maharashtra, Vidarbha.
The 44-year-old patient was taken to GMC on Friday after a private hospital in the town had turned away. A GMC resident doctor anonymously told that the patient and his relatives were asked multiple times when he had been admitted to contacting all COVID-19 patients, as is now the standard procedure in government hospitals. But they denied it.
“Doctors accused him of Saturday showing signs of cough, cold and fever because such symptoms are typically not seen in brain vascular patients. If the doctors pressed on, he announced that his cousin, after positive coronaviral examination, was admitted to Indira Gandhi Medical College in Nagpur. Everybody in the ward first tried to thrash him, but the doctors in the ward immediately moved him to an isolation ward and sent his samples to be tested, “the doctor said.
By then, more than 30 GMC staff, including physicians, nurses and other workers, had been in touch with the patient. The sample tests on Sunday showed that he has screened the highly infectious disease positively.
The patient’s wife and son both screened Coronavirus positively and were admitted to the GMC.
The richest state in India, Maharashtra, has now recorded 230 coronavirus cases, the highest in the world. There are 16 cases in Nagpur alone.
There are concerns that a rise in the number of cases, as seen by others in front of India in terms of their trajectory, may soon be overwhelmed by GMC, while GMC has over 1,000 doctors, especially if more people have to quarantine. Just on Monday, 70 suspected COVID-19 patients were admitted to the hospital.
More than 780,000 people worldwide have screened the virus positively, killing more than 37,000. Scientists have said that the virus follows an exponential pattern of progression, which means that more and more people are infected with it every day.
Doctors, nurses and other medical workers working in India’s crowded public health system have sought to counter the pandemic with their backs against the wall. In addition to the lack of medical supplies including masks and gloves, they also have to contend with neighbours’ and relatives’ suspicion and concerns for their own health.
These problems develop when patients conceal their past because of fear or ignorance.
