Delay in reporting deaths was due to shortage of staff: Pvt Hospital

Goemkarponn desk
MARGAO: A day after Goemkarponn revealed the names of the hospitals who hid the number of COVID19 deaths, the Margao-based Mother Care Hospital said that the delay in reporting deaths was due to shortage of staff.
“We have come across an article on your website that says that Our hospital did not report Covid deaths. This is incorrect. We had converted our entire hospital into a hospital for treatment of Covid positive Patients. Therefore all deaths in our hospital from the 15th of April 2021 were of patients that were Covid positive,” Sagar Utagi, Director of Mother Care hospital wrote in an email to Goemkarponn.
Further he said twice everyday, when the online portal was to be updated the hospital staff reported the number of deaths, admissions, oxygen cylinders used and cylinders required on the online portal.
”The details of people who expired to be mentioned  in the excel sheet were delayed by a few days, due to acute staff shortage and tremendous pressure to meet the medical needs of patients. We hope you understand the challenging times that we worked in,” the director said.
He further said that for all the deaths, the “cause of death” has to be given to the relatives for cremation or burial.
“We also have to submit the details to the municipality so that death certificate can be issued,” he said.