Mysuru: Relatives of a woman, who died three days after treatment at a private hospital, staged a protest in front of the hospital yesterday evening, accusing the doctors of negligence. They placed the woman’s dead body in front of the hospital demanding action against the doctors.

Twenty-eight-year-old Renuka, a resident of Yadavagiri was admitted to Chandrakala Hospital on Kalidasa Road for fever on June 15. She was working as a teacher at a private school at Kuvempunagar. She returned from the school on June 14 and had severe vomiting and high fever after she had dinner. She was rushed to the hospital on the morning of June 15.

Renuka since then was being treated at the hospital. But all of sudden the doctors in the hospital advised her family members to shift her to another hospital having better medical facility as her condition worsened due to dengue. According to Renuka’s uncle Srinivas, on the day she was admitted to the hospital, her blood platelet count was 1,64,000. It rapidly reduced to 36,000 on June 17 (yesterday) but the doctors continued treating her till afternoon.

“Doctors told us later that Renuka had dengue and as the hospital did not have ventilator facility, she had to be shifted to another hospital,” said Srinivas. Renuka, however, died on the way to Apollo Hospital where she was referred to. Later, her relatives brought back the body to Chandrakala Hospital and staged a protest.

Relatives alleged that the death was due to negligence of the doctors and if they had informed to shift Renuka to another hospital earlier, she would not have died. Relatives demanded that the hospital should pay compensation to the family members.

The protest caused traffic jams on the busy Kalidasa Road and surrounding areas and the Police had a tough time in controlling the protesters and traffic. ACP Umesh G. Shet said that a case has been registered against doctors at Jayalakshmipuram Police Station on charges of negligence after shifting her body to the mortuary.

SHOW-CAUSE NOTICE

Reacting to the reports that Renuka died of dengue, District Health Officer Dr. B. Basavaraju said that the hospital authorities had not sent the patient’s blood samples to the district doctors who are authorised to declare it a dengue case.

“The hospital authorities should have sent the blood samples to us if it was a dengue case. We will send a show-cause notice to the hospital and we will also procure the blood samples of the woman and test them,”    he added.