Lucknow family left food at hospital for Covid patient, didn’t know he was already dead

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service 

New Delhi, April 27

A family in Lucknow left food at the local state-run Lok Bandhu hospital for two days for their critically ill Covid patient, not knowing that he was already dead.

They learnt of the death of Rajiv Mahajan, 57, from the police who called in on Sunday evening to say, “We have the body of your relative. Please come and collect it.”

The distraught family say they did not know their relative would turn up dead like that.

Sanya mahajan says, “My uncle, Rajiv Mahajan, was coronavirus-positive like other members of the family. We were all doing fine until my uncle’s oxygen saturation fell to 35 on April 23. With difficulty we transported him to Lok Bandhu hospital, which admitted him to the Covid Ward 11 where he was supposed to be put on oxygen.

“Since all of us, including my father, were coronavirus-positive, the hospital staff asked us to leave. We returned with dinner for my uncle on April 23 night and left the tiffin at the hospital help desk with my uncle’s name written on it. We brought lunch for him the next day. Both times we left the tiffin at the help desk of the hospital, with the patient’s name and the ward number on it.”

Later, when the family called up the hospital helpline to check how Rajiv Mahajan was doing, the authorities said there was no patient in the Covid ward by that name.

“This was horrifying as when we had arrived at the emergency the other day, a doctor had taken down details of my uncle. Everything was rushed because we, the attendants, were also coronavirus-positive. From that moment on, we kept making frantic calls to the hospital and each time we were told that no one by that name was there.

“At the same facility, we were leaving food for my uncle who was perhaps dead,” a shocked Sanya Mahajan said, wondering if many more Covid patients were similarly disappearing and later turning up dead.

On April 25, the Mahajan family received a call from the police who asked them to come and collect the body.

“We were told he had been dead since April 24 morning, just a day after we left him at the facility,” Deepak Mahajan, the elder brother of the deceased, says expressing helplessness.

Down with severe Covid symptoms themselves, the Mahajan family was unable to collect the body and requested an acquaintance to help with the last rites.

“We are all down with Covid and were unable to send off my uncle with dignity. His last rites had to be performed by an acquaintance, who collected the body from the police and cremated it on our behalf. The cops mentioned in the discharge slip that my uncle was indeed at the Lok Bandhu hospital,” Sanya says.

What pains Sanya is that her father has spent years in social service helping street-dwellers with essentials and coming to the aid of anyone in need.