Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Monday sought the Maharashtra government’s response on an incident in June where an 82-year-old woman went missing from the COVID ward of a Jalgaon civil hospital, and her body was found in the washroom of the hospital eight days later. A bench led by Chief Justice Dipankar Datta also said that the state must provide some compensation to the family of the deceased.
The court asked the state to find out if a post mortem was conducted in the case, and to place the details of the postmortem report before the court. The bench was hearing a PIL filed by BJP’s Ashish Shelar seeking that all state and Central guidelines be followed by hospital authorities while disposing of bodies of COVID-19 victims.
In compliance with a previous order of the court, Shelar had put all his allegations of negligence statewide on an affidavit. It was while pursuing the affidavit that the bench noticed the Jalgaon incident.
“This instance has come to our notice and has shocked us. The woman was missing for eight days before her body was found in the hospital washroom. Isn’t this alarming?” the bench asked. “Was any post mortem conducted? Because if she did not die on (June) 2nd itself, but on (June) 10th, the day that her body was found, then it means she must have had to survive for eight days without food. This is inhuman,” the bench said.
The woman had gone missing from the ward on June 2 and a missing compliant was filed by her family. On June 10, a hospital staffer found her body in the washroom after some persons alerted him to a foul smell emanating from there.
The state government told the court this was a stray incident and an inquiry had been initiated into it, adding that hospital authorities had been served show-cause notices. The bench, however, said that while this might be a stray incident, the state needed to do more than issue notices.
“You (state) may have issued show-cause notices. But is that solace for the family? This may be a stray incident but do you not think the state has a responsibility to compensate the family,”the bench asked. It directed the state to file its reply in the matter and to submit the post mortem report by October 5.
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