In a shocking incident, a 72-year-old man who was declared dead by a doctor at Bina District Hospital in Madhya Pradesh was found to be still breathing when his body was being sent for a postmortem after spending a whole night in the mortuary.
However, after spending an entire night in a freezing chamber in the morgue, Kashiram Soni, hailing from Chhatarpur district, Madhya Pradesh, couldn’t be revived and died about 90 minutes later.
The Chief Medical Officer, Dr RS Roshan has instituted an inquiry against the doctor who issued a ‘memo’ for an autopsy of a man who was still alive.
“A patient was declared dead by a doctor at 9:30 pm on June 20. When we saw him in the morning on June 21, he was still alive. However, he died sometime later. We have ordered an investigation in this case of negligence by the doctor,” said Roshan.
Kashiram was admitted to the hospital on June 14 after being found lying unconscious on the road.
In what could be called an extreme case of negligence, Dr Avinash Saxena, who was on duty, reportedly sent a note to police around 9 pm to inform that Kashiram had died. A hospital employee had delivered the note to Bina SHO Anil Mourya.
The next morning, the SHO visited the hospital mortuary and while making the Panchnama of Kashiram for the autopsy, realised that the elderly man was “still breathing”. “I was shocked, and immediately called for an ambulance to take him to the hospital”, recollected Mourya.
Meanwhile, the ASP of the Sagar police station, Vikram Singh said, “We had received a call in the night that a patient had died in hospital. However, the person was alive when we went to the hospital for postmortem. Soon, we informed the doctor on duty and he informed that the patient is still alive.”
“The doctor started his treatment but he soon died. Then again at 10:20 am, they informed us that the person has expired. He was alive the whole night. It’s a case of negligence. We will inform about this to the district administration and action will be taken as per law,” said police.
