Representative image of a health workers and relatives preparing for a funeral of a COVID-19 patient. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: The Gujarat principal secretary of health, Jayanti Ravi, has attributed a staggering disparity between hospitals’ and the state government’s official count of deaths due to COVID-19 in Rajkot to the death of patients who did not suffer from COVID-19 but had been undergoing treatment at designated COVID-19 hospitals.
Indian Express has reported that the Gujarat government took the decision to introduce a team of 15 doctors from other cities to Rajkot to tackle a surge in cases. The eponymous district has seen nearly 100 new cases every day of the past week.
In answer to a reporter’s question on the number disparity in Rajkot, the newspaper quoted the bureaucrat as having said, “Everyone whose last rites are performed as per COVID-19 protocol may not have died due to COVID-19. There could be suspected cases but they may not be confirmed cases of COVID-19.”
This is not the first time that Rajkot, the hometown of Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, has been in the thick of COVID-19 news. In May, The Wire broke the news that the Centre is procuring 5,000 ventilators from a Rajkot-based firm which has already been accused of supplying breathing machines to Ahmedabad’s largest COVID-19 hospital that doctors there said were not up to the mark.
Also read: Behind Ahmedabad’s Ventilator Controversy, a Backstory of Connections to Top BJP Leaders
“In August, 234 patients died in COVID-19 hospitals in Rajkot district. The state bulletin till Sunday showed only 89 deaths as due to COVID-19 in the district,” the Express report added.
“On Sunday, the Rajkot CDHO bulletin showed eight deaths at COVID-19 hospitals, while the state bulletin showed no deaths from the district for the day.”
It is unknown whether non-COVID deaths in COVID-designated hospitals, which nonetheless have had to undergo COVID-protocol for cremation or burial, could indeed be responsible for the large gap in tally.
Gujarat has continued to make news in its efforts to tackle the spread of COVID-19, drawing national attention as to why a state otherwise so prosperous has failed to contain the disease. Indira Hirway and Darshini Mahadevia attempt to decode some of the reasons in the early days of the pandemic, in April, in this analysis for The Wire Science.
According to the Gujarat government, the state has recorded 96,300 COVID-19 cases and has 15,524 active cases at present. The state government’s numbers have it that 3,020 people died in the state after testing positive for COVID-19.