Mah govt orders probe as scribe dies of COVID-19, likely due to hospital’s negligence

Pune, Sep 2 (UNI) A city-based journalist working with a private news channel, succumbed to the COVID-19 on Wednesday, after a private hospital in Ahmednagar district allegedly delayed his treatment seeking advance payment.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar has ordered a probe in the journalist’s death.
The deceased (42) was brought to Pune’s Jumbo Hospital at COEP from Ahmednagar on Tuesday evening. His family and friends alleged that the hospital delayed admitting him unless he made an advance payment of Rs 40,000.

A close relative of the deceased said that the journalist had undergone a swab test here on August 22. “The test was negative. He then decided to take rest and return to Ahmednagar, his home town,” he said.
“On Monday, he went to a private hospital in Ahmednagar which asked him to get a COVID test done. The hospital said it cannot conduct the test as it had run out of kits,” relatives stated.
The journalist then rushed to a COVID Care Centre located a few kilometres away from Kopargaon city. “Here, they conducted a rapid antigen test which confirmed him to be COVID positive,” one of his relative said.
The journalist and his wife then went to the private hospital in Ahmednagar. ”All this while, Pandurang was feeling uneasy and breathless and required urgent hospital admission. However, the hospital refused to admit him. They asked him to pay Rs 40,000 as advance fees. They told him that it will take a time to make the payment as other patients were in the queue,” apprised the relative.
He further said it was only after the intervention of the District Collector and the Tehsildar, the journalist was admitted by the private hospital.
“However, it took nearly two hours for admission. Even as his condition was deteriorating, he was not given any treatment or any medicine by the hospital,” he alleged, adding had he received timely treatment, the scribe would have survived.
He mentioned that the condition of the deceased deteriorated even after he was admitted to the hospital. It was then his family decided to shift him to Pune on Tuesday afternoon.
When contacted, Ahmednagar district collector Rahul Dwivedi said, ”As soon as I got the information, I directed the hospital to immediately admit the patient. As for the allegations from the family regarding demand for advance payment, we are looking into it.”

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