MIOT International claimed that no help came following a distress call from the hospital on December 3 after 18 patients died in two days. However, a statement from the State Health Department said oxygen cylinders had been provided, but an inspection revealed that “the hospital had no standby generators to back up those that were inundated and that the flooding was not of an order requiring boats.” Chairman of MIOT, PVA Mohandas told The Hindu that the hospital was entirely cut off from the rest of the city. “We could not inform relatives as we did not want a riot-like situation in the hospital where there was no food and the water levels were rising. The phone lines were also down.” Meanwhile, at a press conference in the evening, Chief Secretary K. Gnanadesikan placed the blame entirely on the hospital.
“You all know MIOT hospital is located in a low-lying area. It is the responsibility of a big hospital like MIOT to have adequate power supply, power generator. The management had completely abandoned the patients, and the law will now take its own course. The State government took extraordinary efforts with this; we have walked the extra mile.”
Bodies of 14 patients – nine men and five women – were brought to Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem examination from Thursday night onwards, while four bodies were sent home directly.
On Friday, visits showed that chaos reigned as both hospitals were filled with grieving and angry relatives who alleged that they had received no communication from MIOT about the death of their loved ones. Several of them only found out about the disaster when the news was broadcast on television channels on Friday morning. Others were still looking for their relatives, hopping from hospital to another for hours.
Nobody was at Royapettah Hospital to represent MIOT as of Friday. Director of Medical Education S. Geethalakshmi told reporters that “they had received 14 bodies from MIOT Hospital and the hospital had told the authorities that most of the patients had been in critical condition and had died of natural causes.”
Special desk
Hospital administrators said they had created a special desk to help people identify their kin.
Published - December 05, 2015 12:00 am IST
