COVID patient who went missing from Vijayawada hospital found in mortuary

Vijayawada: The Vijayawada police found the body of the 63-year-old man who went missing from a COVID-19 hospital in Vijayawada on 24 June in the hospital mortuary on 3 July. T. Vasantha Rao died of the corona virus but the hospital authorities had failed to inform his relatives, his family members alleged, accusing the hospital of gross negligence.

Rao's wife, Dhanalakshmi, took her husband to the hospital on 24 June after he complained of hiccups and breathing problems. The hospital staff asked Dhanalakshmi to bring his Aadhaar card and she went home to get the same. The hospital staff took him upstairs in a wheelchair and didn't allow his wife to accompany him.

The next morning, when Dhanalakshmi went to the hospital with his Aadhar card, the hospital staff was clueless about her husband's whereabouts. They claimed that he was only an out-patient and was not admitted to the hospital.

They verified the records and declared that no one by the name Vasantha Rao had been admitted. Vexed by the behaviour of the hospital staff, Dhanalakshmi, along with her relatives, lodged a complaint at the One Town police station on 29 June.

The police verified the CCTV footage and confirmed that Rao was taken inside the hospital in a wheelchair on 24 June. But his details were not recorded in the hospital records. On Thursday, Dhanalakshmi submitted a representation to Krishna district collector A. Md Imtiaz.

The search for Rao ended on Friday after the hospital staff found his body in the mortuary. Rao had died on the morning of 25 June but the staff had goofed up the records. Instead of writing Vasantha Rao, they had recorded his name as Venkateswara Rao, the cops said