Over the last two days, Karnataka witnessed two incidents of irate relatives of COVID-19 patients attacking hospital staff and property at Bengaluru and Belagavi.
Doctors at the K.C. General Hospital in Bengaluru were allegedly attacked late on Tuesday evening by the attendants of a COVID-19 patient.
Sources in the hospital said that a 43-year-old woman was brought to the hospital with severe acute respiratory infection and low oxygen saturation. “We did not have intensive care unit facilities but we admitted the patient. The patient passed away,” a source in the hospital said.
The family demanded that the body be given to them, but hospital authorities refused as it was a positive case and needed to follow necessary protocols. Then the restive mob allegedly attacked them.
The hospital has lodged a complaint.
In Belagavi, an irate mob allegedly set fire to an ambulance on the district hospital premises after an old man died there. They alleged that the patient died because of negligence by doctors.
The patient was from Ghee Galli. Police Commissioner K. Thiyagarajan, Deputy Commissioner M.G. Hiremath and others visited the spot.
