NGO seeks enquiry into alleged under-reporting of COVID deaths

Chennai

In a complaint to Health Secretary Dr Beela Rajesh, the NGO’s convenor Jayaram Venkatesan said his organisation has been getting complaints from different sources over under-reporting of coronavirus deaths and they have documents on three specific cases which have not been reported by the daily medical bulletin.

Pointing to the first case, he said they were in possession of the mortuary card of Stanley Medical College Hospital of a 50-year-old-male patient who died on May 28. The patient’s cause of death was noted as COVID and the mortuary card was signed by a doctor, Resident Medical Officer and mortuary attender. “The death should have been shown in the list of COVID patients who died on either May 28 or May 29. However, on both these dates, not even a single death was reported from the Stanley hospital. The death remains unreported until today,” he wrote.

The second case involves a 69-year-old male who died in Stanley hospital on May 31, he said, noting that the mortuary card shows that the patient was admitted to COVID ward. Venkatesan pointed to the case of the 87-year-old male who was admitted to Raja Muthiah Medical College Hospital in Cuddalore after being tested as positive and listed as patient number 20504 on May 29 in the medical bulletin released by the department. “We have learnt that the patient died on June 4. However, his death has also not been reported,” he said.

Noting that the three case studies prima facie raises serious doubts on the deaths not being reported by the State, he said that reporting deaths transparently is the need of the hour.