MUMBAI: The family of a 27-year-old comatose patient from Thane has alleged that his right eye was nibbled by a rat at the civic-run Bal Thackeray Trauma Care Hospital, Jogeshwari, early on Monday. The hospital has denied the incident, claiming the āfictitiousā complaint was made at the behest of a doctor.
Parminder Gupta was a healthy man until last month when he fell of his two-wheeler. He felt a sudden numbness in his forearm which prompted him to visit Highland Hospital in Thane. He was advised CT and MRI scans, but he collapsed while on the way to undergoing tests. Doctors at Highland diagnosed a blood clot in the brain.
His sister Nirmala said, āThe doctors operated upon him to remove the clot. But he has remained in a comatose condition since the surgery on March 8.ā As the bill ran up to more than Rs 6 lakh after nearly 40 days of hospital stay, the family decided to shift him to the BMC-run hospital.
The sister claimed that the rat bit him on Sunday when he was shifted to the general ward on the ninth floor from the ICU that he had been admitted to since April 12. āThere was blood all over his face, clothes, bed and blanket. The doctor asked us to buy tetanus injection. My uncle who was by his side said the ward is infested with rats and he had twice chased away rats from his bedside.ā
Medical superintendent Dr HS Bawa refuted the allegations. āRat infestation is a problem in the hospital but no such incident took place. We checked the patient but didnāt find any bite marks. An ophthalmologist too checked for injuries in the eye but nothing was visible,ā he said and added that Guptaās platelet count had dropped to less than 25,000 and there is a possibility of the patient bleeding. Six months ago, a similar incident was reported at Shatabdi Hospital, Kandivli, where two women were nibbled by rats and required additional treatment for that.
