Pune Mayor alleges 400 unaccounted suspected COVID-19 deaths

    Pune, Aug 1 (PTI) Pune Mayor Murlidhar Mohol has
alleged that at least 400 suspected COVID-19 deaths have gone
unaccounted for in the city in July.
    Mohol said he raised the issue during his meeting with
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday, when the latter
was in the city to take stock of the coronavirus situation.
    Speaking on Friday, the mayor said that every month
there are at least 400 to 500 deaths of suspected coronavirus
patients that are going unaccounted for in Sassoon General
Hospital and private hospitals in the city.
    "There are at least12 deaths of suspected
coronavirus patients that are going unaccounted for in Sassoon
hospital daily. Similar cases are taking place in private
hospitals also," he alleged.
    "These deaths remain unaccounted for because the
patients are either brought dead to the hospitals or they die
immediately after being brought there.
    "As per the guidelines, no test is conducted on a
deceased. But when the doctors take the X-ray of these people,
they show symptoms of COVID-19," Mohol claimed.
    He said that while raising the issue with the CM, he
sought steps to stop such deaths.
    "Early tracing of patients should be done so that they
can be given timely treatment and such deaths can be stopped,"
he added.
    Following the allegations, Collector Naval Kishore Ram
said an inquiry will be conducted into it and a report has
been sought from Sassoon hospital.
    "The staff of the district administration keeps
visiting Sassoon hospital and goes through the records. It is
unlikely that there is any misreporting or under-reporting in
Pune," he said.
    "There might be some issues related to data entry. But
the figure mentioned by the honourable mayor looks impossible.
But we will conduct a fair inquiry as I have sought a report
from Sassoon," the collector added. PTI SPK
NP NP

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)