Odisha shocker: Wife kills self after hospital says her husband died in AC blast, now says he is alive
Medical negligence cases are not new in Odisha, as a new incident took place in the state capital where a young, grief-stricken wife died by suicide a day after cremating her alleged husband’s burned body, reported Times of India, adding the person was alive.
According to the report, the charred body given to the wife of one of the AC technicians – injured during an AC explosion at a hospital in Odisha – didn’t belong to him and he is still undergoing treatment.
The AC technician – 34-year-old Dilip Samantaray – is among the four AC technicians who got injured in the accident and is recuperating from burns in the same hospital, which is now accused of wrongly identifying the one who died.
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The incident of Dilip’s wife Sona (24) dying by suicide took place on New Year’s Day – 1 January. But on Friday, Bhubaneshwar’s Hi-Tech Hospital clarified that Dilip Samantaray was alive and the body given for cremation to Sona and her kin belonged to Dilip’s colleague Jyotiranjan Mallick.
The report added that Dilip, Jyotiranjan, Simanchal, and Sritam were servicing the hospital ACs on 29 December when an explosion took place. This left all of them with severe burns.
Surprisingly, despite pronouncing Jyotiranjan dead on 30 December, the hospital identified him wrongly. On 3 January, Sritam also succumbed to his injuries. But till then, it was too late as the police station had handed over the first body – presumed to be Dilip’s – to his kin.
Following the goof-up by the hospital spread, that led to Sona’s suicide, people started protesting outside the hospital.
“My family is shattered. My niece killed herself over this false information given by the hospital,” TOI quoted Sona’s uncle Rabindra Jena as saying.
Meanwhile, Jyotiranjan’s wife Arpita Mukhi is inconsolable. “I want my husband back. I failed to recognize him during treatment because of his severe burns,” the daily quoted her saying.
In the meantime, the hospital denied its involvement in the entire scene. “We didn’t commit the mistake. The technicians were engaged by a private firm to repair ACs. While being admitted for treatment after the explosion, each one of them was identified by a contractor linked to the firm,” TOI quoted hospital’s CEO Smita Padhi as saying.
She also claimed that the kin of each injured saw them at the hospital and they followed all legal steps and medical procedures. She added that after cops handed over the body to the kin, nobody from the family reported that the body was not of Dilip.
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Published: 06 Jan 2024, 06:25 PM IST
