Fire victims’ kin scour hosps, even mortuaries for update in Mumbai

Mumbai: The ordeal for families of patients affected in the Sunrise Hospital fire didn’t end for hours after the flames were doused. Most searched multiple hospitals and even mortuaries for their loved ones while others pleaded in vain with police and fire personnel to fetch the medical files as doctors were grappling in the dark about their health conditions.
Cramped in an ambulance with three Covid-19 patients, Sanjeev Nair recalled the panic early on Friday morning as he shifted his mother-in-law Radha Kaladharan from Sunrise to Mulund jumbo hospital. He was counting every second in that 20-minute commute as Kaladharan, who was on oxygen support at Sunrise, was shifted without one.
“After she was rescued from the terrace through a ladder, I thought we shouldn’t waste any time and rushed her to Mulund. Her medical files, cellphone, everything was gone, but we luckily found a bed and medical support in Mulund,” he said, as he waited outside the gate of the jumbo hospital on Friday afternoon for an update on her health and finding a way to deliver a cellphone to her. Her condition was stable, said dean Dr Pradeep Angre.
Muskan Khanna and her husband wore a worried look outside Mulund jumbo hospital where her brother Paritosh Rajput (39) and father Jagdish (65) were shifted after the fire. Both were on oxygen support at the hospital. Muskan said her mother, too, was positive and under home isolation. The family had come positive on Saturday evening, following which the father and son got admitted to Mulund jumbo. They didn’t like the hygiene condition there and moved to Sunrise. “We hoped for better care but Sunrise doctors gave us little update on their health,” said Muskan. The fire has shaken her brother, who has already been grappling with Covid. “He is barely able to talk about it while my father has fallen unconscious multiple times,” she said.
On Friday, the family was back to calling hospitals looking for beds.
At Sunrise, staffers said they also managed to rescue over 63 patients, with some even refusing to be saved. “There was a patient who is also battling cancer. He just didn’t want to move out of his room. In another case, we literally lifted a man weighing 150kg and put him on a wheelchair. He had come out of the ventilator just a day before. He was refusing to come out of his room even as the smoke spread,” a staffer said.