The Congress party in Goa on Friday demanded an inquiry into what it called the medical lapses that preceded the death of its senior leader Jitendra Deshprabhu, who died last month after a severe bout of pneumonia.
The demand came on a day when a senior resident doctor in Goa Medical College was suspended pending further inquiry for being absent without leave when Deshprabhu was rushed to hospital requiring critical care.
“As per the information gathered, two key on-duty doctors were missing when they were needed to attend Deshprabhu,” Girish Chodankar, the Congress’ Goa unit chief, said while alleging that the doctors were being protected by higher-ups.
“The Congress demands an impartial inquiry by a retired high court judge on [the] mysterious death of our leader,” Chodankar said.
Later, the dean of Goa Medical College and Hospital issued an order suspending the senior resident doctor. A show-cause notice has also been sent to Dr Jeevan Vernekar, the head of the radiology department.
According to the show-cause notice sent to Dr Vernekar, there was a delay in conducting Deshprabhu’s CT scan at the time of his admission in GMC.
It also said that when the chief medical officer accompanied Deshprabhu to the radiology department “neither a junior doctor nor senior resident doctor was present there to do the CT scan and the patient had to wait for 35 minutes.”
The Goa Association of Resident Doctors has, however, protested the suspension of the doctor.
In a statement to the media, the association said the decision to place the doctor on suspension was “demoralizing and demotivating to the serving residents of the institution who are already overburdened and overstressed working as frontline warriors in the ongoing pandemic.”
“Residents support this institution in fighting this pandemic, but the suspension order meted against one of our senior residents is demoralizing,” the association said.
Jitendra Deshprabhu, the former two-time legislator in Goa, died due to pneumonia on April 21. His test report for Covid-19 was reported negative.
