Facing Centre heat, Bengal puts out audit: 57 deaths, 18 due to virus

Read| Amid standoff, Central team asks Bengal for presentation on COVID-19 preparedness

In a press statement, Biswaranjan Satpati, head of the audit committee and former director, health services, said, “The expert committee for conducting audit into the death of COVID-19 positive patients which was set up on April 3 has, till this date, examined 57 cases of death of persons who had tested positive for COVID-19. This committee examined all relevant documents, including bed-head-ticket, treatment history, laboratory investigation report, death certificates and other documents sent by the hospitals concerned, and found that 18 deaths were due to COVID-19 infections.”

It said, “The remaining 39 deaths were due to severe co-morbid conditions which were the immediate cause of death and COVID-19 was the incidental finding. The co-morbidities were cardiomyopathy with chronic kidney disease, renal failure, cerebrovascular-accident, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, left ventricular failure and severe hypertension, multi-organ failure in Type-II diabetes and hypertension, red cell aplasia in a case of severe diabetes and hypertension, and severe diabetes with hypertension, hyponatremia.”

Apurba Chandra, who heads one of the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams sent to West Bengal, Friday wrote to West Bengal Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha and sought to know the system of declaring COVID-19 deaths by the audit committee set up by the state. Expressing displeasure with the explanation provided by the state Health Secretary, Chandra asked for the case records of all patients where the cause of death was attributed to some other cause.

A few hours later, the Chief Secretary revealed the contents of the death audit committee report. A senior state government official said, “The Central team put tremendous pressure on the Chief Secretary to make the report public. The state government then decided to make public the total deaths related to COVID-19.” To a question, the Chief Secretary said, “What made us share information is not important. Important is, what information we are giving.”

CM Mamata Banerjee during a Corona awareness drive at Moulali Kolkata on Thurdsday,in  Kolkata  on April 23, 2020.

Sinha said the state was operating as per the guidelines of the Central government and ICMR. In the last 24 hours, the state recorded 51 new positive cases with the total number of active patients rising to 385. The number of dead has gone up to 18 from 15.

Further, 943 new samples have been tested in the last 24 hours, and the total number of tests has increased to 8,933.

“We got some complaints from different corners that many hospitals are denying care to non-COVID patients. We told them we will take strong action if any hospital turns away patients. They will have to give treatment, and if necessary, the government will step in,” the Chief Secretary said.