New Delhi: The Darbhanga Medical College & Hospital (DMCH) in Bihar has issued a rebuttal to a report by ThePrint’s Correspondent Jyoti Yadav, which highlighted the squalid conditions Covid patients from across northern Bihar had to face.
The report, titled “‘If there’s hell…it’s here’ — A day with patients in DMCH, north Bihar’s mainstay hospital”, was published on 20 May 2021.
The DMCH’s superintendent issued a statement in Hindi, condemning the report and denying the conditions of the hospital described in it. The official also said they would file a complaint with the Press Council of India, specifically against the correspondent. No name was given with the designation in the statement.
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DMCH’s statement in full (translated)
Correspondent Jyoti Yadav has given absolutely baseless, misleading and false information regarding the Covid ward at DMCH.
DMCH refutes this.
It must be noted that correspondent Jyoti Yadav wanted to visit the corona ward and corona isolation ward of DMCH. The doctors present there didn’t give her permission under the Covid-19 protocols in place.
Following this, she misbehaved with officials and doctors there, and gave false and misleading information regarding DMCH. DMCH denies and condemns it.
DMCH will also file a complaint against correspondent Jyoti Yadav with the Press Council of India.
Superintendent,
DMCH, Darbhanga.
ThePrint Correspondent Jyoti Yadav’s response
A picture of a ward at DMCH, Darbhanga, was doing the rounds on social media, and I decided to go and see if patients are indeed facing awful conditions.
I visited the old surgery ward building Monday evening (17 May), and found that the picture on social media was from the past. But the conditions were still as horrible. The nurses and other medical staff, who did not wish to be named in my report, shared many insights. They said since there’s a queue at the three new buildings now functioning as Covid wards, patients wait at the old surgery ward for three or four days.
The two emergency wards at the surgery building had six occupants — Sunita from Madhubani, a Covid-positive patient who was being shifted to one of the three new wards, in one of the wards, and five Covid patients in the other.
The next day, I visited all three Covid wards at the DMCH, and found families arranging medicines from outside, female attendants looking for corners to relieve themselves as toilets were extremely dirty and stray dogs blocked the corridors, pigs crying loudly outside the Covid wards, and the lights not working.
I saw five doctors in the buildings Tuesday but didn’t interact with any of them, and there were no officials present. One of the security guards showed me around, and the nurses were forthcoming. One of the nurses narrated the horrors of not having access to a washroom.
I only found distressed families, such as Manoj Kumar Yadav’s father crying in ward number three. I waited outside the ward with the security guard, and it took a few minutes before junior doctors arrived and fixed Yadav’s oxygen cylinder.
Around 7 in the evening, four hours after Ganesh Paswan’s death, his son approached me for help with the removal of the body, and the security guard alerted officials through a phone call.
After my visit to the wards, Deputy Development Commissioner Tanay Sultania, the officer in-charge of implementation of rural development schemes, connected me to the head of the department of medicine, U.C. Jha, for official data on doctors and nurses. I spoke to Jha and deputy medical superintendent Mani Bhushan, who declined to comment as they were not authorised.
The DMCH’s allegation that I misbehaved with doctors and officials is completely baseless. I only met DDC Tanay Sultania and District Magistrate Thiyagrajan S.M., and only spoke to DMCH officials and doctors on the phone, and the telephonic conversations were cordial. The fair truth must be stated: Nobody tried obstructing me at all. So, there was no altercation or unpleasant argument.
I hope DMCH goes ahead and raises this story with the honourable Press Council of India (PCI). Hopefully then, PCI can send a fact-finding team to Darbhanga and see the facts for itself.
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