Patient alive but ‘body’ handed to family at Maharashtra government hospital

Sangli: When a government hospital in Maharashtra informed family members of a 50-year-old patient of his death and handed them his body, they were crestfallen. It was only after the body was brought to the home of the "deceased" Avinash Dadasaheb Bagwade that family members realised it wasn't his.

Enquiries with the Sangli civil hospital authorities revealed that it was indeed not the body of Bagwade, who in fact, was alive and responding to treatment in the hospital.

A hospital official said the reason for this mix-up would be probed. "We will submit a probe report in the next 48 hours and action will be taken against those involved," the hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Subodh Ugane said.

The hospital also failed to identify the person whose body was handed over to the Bagwade family after conducting the post-mortem. The incident took place at the government hospital, where Bagwade was admitted for liver ailment.

On Tuesday, his relatives received a call from the hospital informing that he was dead. Some relatives arrived at the hospital and accepted the body, a hospital official said.

"However, one relative was not convinced that it was Bagwade's body. He spoke to the hospital authorities who asked the family to collect the body and leave the premises," he said.

As the body was being taken into Bagwade's house at Tasgaon, about 25 km from Sangli, many relatives felt that it was not his body. Some family members then removed the cloth covering it and realised that some other person's body was given to them.

They rushed back to Sangli to find that Bagwade was very much in the hospital and responding to treatment. Meanwhile, nobody has come forward to claim the body, the official said.