A 74-year-old COVID-19 patient, who was missing for last 15 days from KEM hospital, has been found from a morgue on Tuesday.
The patient had died on the same day when he allegedly went missing and his body was found from the morgue. Patient's missing papers led to the confusion, said police officials.
The case of this missing COVID-19 patient, who was on the ventilator, had sent the hospital authorities and police into tizzy. The cops had started enquiry with the hospital authorities while the hospital had started their own search operation.
An unidentified body similar to that of patient who went missing on May 19 was found while searching hospital's morgue. With the help of police, relatives of the patients were called for identification.
After the relatives identified the body, it was sent for last rights in the presence of police, said a police official aware of the situation.
The investigation revealed that the patient died on the wee hours on May 19. However, his case papers could not be found then, since the patient was COVID-19 positive, his body could not be kept at the ward for long and as a precautionary measure, his body was shifted to the morgue.
When the shift changed, the new staff could not find him at the bed of ward number 20, so they informed his family that the person was missing. While his distraught family had no idea whether their patient is dead or alive, filed a missing complaint with Bhoiwada police station.
Police had then called the family to identify some unclaimed bodies. However, the family said it was not that of the missing man.
The patient, a resident of Jijamata Nagar in Kalachowkie, was admitted to KEM hospital on May 15 after testing positive for Covid-19, he had been suffering from breathing trouble.
