Dengue death: City patient registered as UP resident

In a shocking attempt to downplay the number of deaths caused by dengue in the city, a city hospital refused to admit a dengue patient on her present residing address but registered her native address of Uttar Pradesh instead.

30-year-old Shilpa is originally a resident of Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. Shilpa succumbed to the disease and as per the death certificate provided by the hospital, she hailed from Uttar Pradesh. Interestingly, Shilpa’s voter identity card and Aadhar card carry her Delhi address.

‘She was suffering from dengue fever but the hospital refused to admit her on our present address. They admitted her to the hospital on the condition that we enter our Uttar Pradesh address in hospital records,’ said Sanjay Kumar, Shilpa’s husband. 

Sanjay and Shilpa are residents of Sahabad Dairy in North DMC area. The woman was admitted to Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini on 25 September but died on 27 September.

‘The hospital comes under the jurisdiction of Delhi government and we have no role but to collect the data of dengue reports provided to us,’ said Mayank Sharma, North DMC additional commissioner (health). ‘The hospital was earlier reporting dengue without enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (Elisa) test so we directed them to perform Elisa test in each suspected case of dengue,’ added Sharma. 

Several cases of dengue deaths have been reported from Sahabad Dairy area.