Chennai: The mystery around the demise of head nurse Joan Mary Pracilla (58), who was working at the Covid-19 ward of Rajiv Gandhi General Government Hospital (RGGGH), continues even as many disgruntled nurses demand a thorough inquiry to bring out the truth.
Pracilla was hospitalised on 24 May evening with respiratory issues, fever and cough. She was also a high diabetic patient, it is said.
Sources said her she was tested positive for Covid-19 and it was also mentioned in her case sheet. She was treated at the Covid ward in isolation at RGGGH for three days where she passed away. However, hours after her death, she was declared negative for the virus by dean Dr Jayanthi. She said it was wrongly entered as Covid positive in the case sheet.
Many videos and text message are being circulated on social media, seeking the truth behind the nurses’s death.
“If a nurse is being treated this way, what is the plight of a patient. How can there be a wrong entry in the case sheet?”, questions a man, identified as Kovai Prabhu, appearing on a widely circulated video.
“Did the Government do this so that it need not pay the family Rs 50 lakh as the promised compensation”, asks a nurse working at a private hospital.
Government Hospital Nurses Association is one among the many associations which issued a stinging statement demanding justice.
Its general secretary Valarmathi says <I>News Today<P> was the first publication she was speaking to as she was yet to come out of shock and feared she would break down while speak to the media.
Pracilla, a dedicated nurse, went through a lot of pain, she says. She had retired on 31 March as a Nursing Superintendent Grade 1 from RGGGH. However, she was asked to extend services for two more months and posted on special duty for Covid-19.
Pracilla had served at Thanjavur Government Medical College in the blood bank section for 25 years and is said to be sincere worker who always had a smile on her face, recalls Valarmathi. She had performed well in all wards she was given duty. She had a known case of diabetic and was brought to the hospital on 24 May in a serious condition and admitted ‘directly to the Covid-19 ward’.
After three days of hospitalisation where she was allegedly treated for Covid-19, and her case sheet mentioned she was positive for the viral infection, she ‘died due to diabetes, heart disease and kidney failure’ and the dean said the case sheet had erroneously mentioned that she was positive. Her family did not see her during the hospitalisation.
“If she was negative, then the family should have been allowed to see her”, says Valarmathi.
“Pracilla was admitted with wheezing and was on ventilator support and she was not in a condition to speak or ask for her family”, Valarmathi says.
“The morale of 40,0000 nurses have been affected by this”, she says. Her association wants to know the reasons for her death.
Following her death, it is said that a team from the civic body wearing PPE kits disinfected her house and cordoned off the area. Her body was packed as per the protocol for a Covid-19 death, but she is not declared as a coronavirus patient, it is said.