KATHMANDU, MAY 10

The kin of coronavirus patient Ali Akhtar Mikrani have blamed Grande International Hospital of negligence in treatment that resulted in the death of the patient.

Ali Akhtar Mikrani, 68, a patient admitted to the hospital passed away today. His kin charged that the hospital had forged the coronavirus test reports and didn't treat the patient property.

The hospital, however, said the patient was provided complete care and no negligence was done by doctors and hospital staff during his treatment. 'He was admitted to the hospital after he tested positive for the virus. He was suffering from various ailments such as high blood pressure, kidney problem, pneumonia and diabetes.

Despite all our efforts, we couldn't save him,' said Dr Amit Gauli, Internal Medicine at Grande International Hospital.

'My father had fever since April 22. On April 24 he tested positive for coronavirus at Star Hospital.

On April 26, as there were signs of pneumonia, we took him to Star Hospital. Upon CT Scan there was 20 per cent pneumonia seen in his chest. His oxygen saturation was 95-96 per cent. After kidney damage was seen, we shifted him to Grande International Hospital,' said Ali Akram Mikrani, son of Ali Akhtar.

'The deceased's COVID reports were given to me on May 1, and he was kept in the general ward for treatment and on May 3 he was shifted to a COVID cabin and was put on oxygen support. But on May 5 they said his test reports were negative and he was shifted to the non-COVID ICU. Again, later, I was given backdated negative test reports. 'If he had negative test reports, why was he kept in a COVID ward?' Ali asked.

The samples were tested in BIDH Laboratory.

The test reports received by The Himalayan Times are both negative and positive. The samples in the reports have the same order ID ORD 12989.

Sample/ VTM ID : IPD0335.

The collection time was the same: 01/05/2021 20:21. Reported Time was 01/05/2021 20:29 One report (Nasopharayngeal, RT-PCR) states that he was COV- ID positive while the other report shows him negative for the virus.

Both of the results were printed on the same date and time- 01/05/2021 20:29 'The system can sometimes give faulty reports because of the bug in the system. The system gives the report automatically. We get notified when there is a bug in the system. The system then gives the correct report after the bug is fixed. The same thing happened in this case. Both the hospital and patient party were informed about the error. The samples were retested for confirmation which gave negative result,' said Ravi Shanker Pokharel, relationship manager at Bidh Laboratory.

'They say that the samples were taken again, but we have not received the report yet. It seems that the reports were distorted,' said Ali Akram.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 11, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.