As flood waters gushed into the Chennai hospital, it failed to make arrangements for backup power supply .
Chennai : In one of the worst tragic fallouts of the century’s most devastating floods that had hit Chennai, 18 patients on ventilator support at a corporate hospital died over the last two days but their relatives were kept in the dark about it until Friday. The hospital allegedly abandoned the patients as flood waters ravaged its premises. It is alleged that the patients, who were in the ICU, died as the management of the MIOT Hospital (Madras Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology) failed to make arrangements for backup power supply to keep the ventilators running after its electricity unit was inundated due a breach in the Adyar river.
Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K Gnanadesikan squarely blamed the hospital for the tragedy. “It is the responsibility of a big hospital like MIOT to have adequate power supply and a power generator. The management had completely abandoned the patients. Law will take its course,” he told journalists in the evening. According to him, the State Government had taken extraordinary efforts to meet the distress call of the hospital earlier. “We have walked the extra mile. You should give credit to the Government for this,” he said.
Of the deceased, 14 bodies were shifted to the Royapettah Government Hospital for post-mortem after the Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan inspected the MIOT (Madras Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology) Hospital in Manapakkam in suburban South Chennai. The remaining four deceased were taken by relatives to their respective homes. The relatives were cut off from patients as the approach to the hospital was cut off due to the massive flooding. The hospital failed to inform the relatives of the deaths and many of them said they learnt about the tragedy only after television channels flashed the news on Friday morning.
“After watching the news on television, I rushed here but they told me my mother has been shifted to the Sri Ramachandra Hospital in Porur. When I went there I couldn’t find her and came back. Now I have been asked to leave for the Government Hospital in Royapettah to collect my mother’s body. This after I paid Rs 6 lakh only two days ago towards her treatment costs,” said an inconsolable Murugan as he held his mother’s hospital patient card. Soon after the deaths came to light, 575 patients, who were still in the hospital, which is known to draw a large number from the Middle East and African countries, were shifted to various other private and government hospitals. The hospital is situated in a low lying area and just behind the Adyar River.
Earlier the Health Secretary claimed that the patients had died of other causes and not due to suspension of electricity supply to the ventilator unit.
Meanwhile, the MIOT Hospital’s managing director Prithvi Mohandoss (the hospital is owned by his parents) claimed that soon after the Adyar river breached and flood water gushed into the premises, they had shifted 30 patients to the main cancer block two days ago. “By Wednesday morning we had no power and the generator sets were damaged in the rain. Nothing was working, including ventilators and monitors. We tried our best but lost 14 patients,” he said. Prithvi claimed that the seven-storied main block of the hospital was constructed four times higher than the 100-year flood line and therefore they were not excepting the river to breach.
Asked why the hospital did not inform relatives about the deaths, he claimed that the phone lines were dead. “We made efforts to contact rescue teams but couldn’t reach them,” he said. However, the State Health Secretary denied this and said the Government had responded to the distress call. “We supplied oxygen cylinders and boats to them. The patients did not die due to ventilator failure as 57 patients were on ventilator on Friday when we went for inspection. If they had died due to the alleged power failure, the others too would have died,” he contended.
