100 Days of Mourning, 100 Days of a Lost Battle,100 Days of losing my Dad to Medical Negligence

They say doctors are saviours. But what my family & I experienced was something completely opposite. I saw them put my Dad through countless needles & IVs on his entire body literally for 51 days, of which 13 days were spent in a pathetic condition on a ventilator, where he was in an unspeakable anguish, all in the guise of Covid19.

But guess what, he never had Covid19, which was affirmed by multiple negative RT-PCR reports and HRCT scans – which kept on repeating “CORADS2 abnormalities consistent with infection other than Covid19”. Together, they form the gold standard indicator for Covid19.

The doctors were in rotation. So we asked all of them multiple times why are they treating him for Covid19 despite the contrary reports? The answer was standard – “ 50% of the Covid19 Virus cases we are treating are similar and he is exhibiting the symptoms”. Additionally, his blood report also mentioned high Procalcitonin (PCT) – a marker for bacterial infection. Oh and my father was asthamatic since birth. So you see – breathlessness was a part of him.

But despite being treated for Covid19, he wasn’t getting any better. In-fact, he was getting worse with each passing day in the hospital, where he kept on repeating – “Take me home, I don’t have Covid19. They don’t know what they are doing, I will end up being on ventilator and never come home”. But we thought, how can multiple doctors be wrong? They are supposed to make you better.

The ironic thing here was – though his Covid19 reports were negative, he was exhibiting symptoms of a well-known endemic in India from Day 1 of his hospitalization (May 20, 2021). We kept on repeating those symptoms to the doctor – huge and rapid weight loss, night sweats, dry cough, excruciating chest pain despite a healthy heart (which was confirmed by his 2D Echo multiple times). See, where am getting at? Tuberculosis!

My mother asked the doctor to test Dad for TB on the first day itself and without testing him they wrote in the doctor's note – TB negative and informed us the same. In our panic, we forgot to ask for the negative report but somehow couldn't give up on the idea of TB, because he had lost over 7 kgs before being hospitalized was rapidly losing weight even while hospitalization. But no – it was Covid19, had to be Covid19, that’s what we were repeatedly told.

Meanwhile, the health of my father was continuously deteriorating. He wanted to come home. He had lost the first layer of his skin due to prolonged hospitalization. Subsequently he also caught a super-bacterial and fungal infection, again which the erstwhile doctors took 35 days to test for, despite his WBC count increasing rapidly with each day. And I kept on insisting that he needed the hospital, I promised him I will bring him home healthy. He just needed to trust me. Today, this is my biggest regret.

We were slowly losing faith in the current set of doctors and finally sought the online appointment of a reputed chest physician in Mumbai, which we were able to book for 29th June 2021 (40th day of my father’s hospitalization). He looked at the HRCT (High Resolution CT of the Lungs) of my father from 20th May 2021 and guess what he told me? Ask the doctors to stop treating him for Covid19 and to make sure they minimize the steroids they are giving him; he has Tuberculosis. All he needs is one pill for the next 6 months and he will be fine. This is not Covid19. Also, his recent scans indicate the presence of a fungal infection, so get him tested for that as well. In fact, based on the first report, he might have not even needed hospitalization.

The same day another doctor came into play at the hospital, with whom I again voiced my concerns about TB and finally got him to test Dad for TB. Guess what??? Dad was indeed TB positive. My warrior was being subjected to incorrect medications and unnecessary pain for 42 days now. But as fate would have had it, he had to be taken on ventilator support the same evening. The TB infection had spread too much since he had acquired super-bacterial and fungal infection in the hospital environment and had been given steroids. He was immuno-compromised by now. Towards the end, the bacteria started to eat his brain, he didn’t recognize us, he stayed without a drop of water and a morsel of food for 13 days. He was in so much pain, that he stayed conscious for hours despite being administered full doses of sedatives and all we saw was the anguish on his face. He was so weak that he was unable to move even his fingers. Before he stopped recognizing us, my last memory with him is telling him that I loved him and he blinked his eyes.

He had reached a point of no return. He was in tremendous pain but wouldn’t stop fighting for us, coz he knew his Chutki, his Sweetheart (my elder sister)?and his wife of 42 years needed him. But he didn’t deserve this, so I told my pappa its ok if he dies and that he can stop fighting now. I don’t know if he heard me, but he had suffered enough.

My father eventually underwent a septic shock and succumbed to his torment on 11th July 2021. He had walked himself in the admission room on 20th May 2021 and returned as an immobile soul on 11th July 2021.

?I am not sharing this story to gain sympathy, what I want is your SUPPORT. I want your support so that we can raise a collective voice against thousands of lives lost each year in India due to medical negligence. And what happened with my father is pure callousness, because human error doesn’t happen repeatedly for over 40 days.

Lets join hands to push for stricter medical laws in India, where cases don’t last for decade and individuals and hospitals know that they will be held accountable for their actions and are not subjected under a mere consumer protection liability.

Today I don’t stand before any of you as a professional, but as a daughter - the daughter of Deben Rajda, who lost his life gruesomely due to repeated medical negligence, the extent of which I will never be able to describe in its full scale.

I seek your support and I seek your collective voice, so that tomorrow no Deben has to lose his life in vain and nobody has to watch their loved one go through the pain and anguish that we did. This is a weight that we will carry for all our lives, but I hope that collectively we can ensure that less lives are lost due to medical malpractice and medical negligence.

Request you to share this as much as possible.

Thank You!

P.S. If anyone needs anything from me to validate the facts, I would be happy to provide.

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