PANAJI: In a shocking revelation, the directorate of health services on Monday said nine private hospitals under-reported 67 Covid deaths in nine months— between August 5, 2020 and May 22, 2021—of which 65 deaths occurred during the past three months.
The 67 deaths were added to the cumulative tally, taking Goa’s fatality count to 2,841 that includes 13 deaths reported on Monday.
The state government has said that it will take strict action against the erring hospitals and will write to each hospital separately seeking an explanation as to why they “indulged in late reporting” of deaths under the Goa Public Health Act.
“We really don’t know the reasons for their doing so, but we don’t want a repeat of this,” state epidemiologist Dr Utkarsh Betokdar said.
He said only two deaths were under-reported from the previous year.
“The rest of the deaths reported late pertains to the past three months when more private hospitals started admitting Covid patients,” Betodkar told TOI.
“It is up to the government as to what action to take against the erring hospitals.
Ideally, hospitals have to report mortalities in time as Covid-19 is a notifiable disease.
Late reporting for 24-48 hours is understandable, but not for months,” he said.
On allegations that some private hospitals had initially under-reported deaths to show mortality count low, he said it didn’t appear that it was done purposely with mala fide intentions.
“Everybody was busy treating patients and slips must have happened,” he said.
The mortality bulletin is released by Goa Medical College (GMC) after collating death figures received from South Goa District Hospital and the DHS.
Private hospitals submit its data to the DHS, which submits it to GMC.
“The mortality bulletin contains deaths recorded during that day as well some from a previous day—comprising 24 hours period—and in a rare case, one or two deaths that may have happened a couple of days ago.
This delay could be because the case warranted a post-mortem and could not be added to the count on the same day as the death was recorded,” Betodkar said.
When any hospital reports a case a week or two after the actual date of death, or even a month later, that data cannot be forwarded to the GMC, asking it to include in mortality bulletin for that day, he said.
When DHS noted that the total of late reported fatalities was 67, the matter was reported to the government asking what’s to be done next.
“The government decided that those figures have to be included in the Covid cumulative count in the mortality bulletin and reason would be given for action taken.
It is done so that the public knows that these are previous deaths, but they are included in the total.
We want to report all cases, and nothing is hidden.
You can’t hide either cases or deaths in the pandemic because anything which you hide, will trouble you later,” Betodkar said.
But for evaluation and epidemiological purposes, the deaths will be shown on actual dates, he said.
“We would like to know the break-up of 67 deaths and how many of them occurred in private hospitals that are our members.
Almost all our member-hospitals started Covid treatment facilities only in the latter half of the second wave of the pandemic,” Association of Private Nursing Home (APNH) secretary Ajit Mopkar said.
He said except Healthway Hospital, none of the other corporate or big hospitals are its members.
Mopkar said APNH is rarely invited for any important meetings, and it is also not part of the taskforce appointed to prepare for the third wave.
During the first wave, only four corporate hospitals in the state were admitting Covid patients and with the health infrastructure coming under severe strain during the second wave, other private hospitals started reserving beds for Covid patients only after the government issued an order in late April.