On the night of March 28, a 65-year-old man who ran a grocery in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district died in Srinagar’s Government Chest Disease Hospital. He was Kashmir’s second Covid-19 fatality.
On the evening of April 5, a 52-year-old fruit trader from North Kashmir’s Bandipora district complained of “heaviness” and “weakness”. By the next evening, he was dead. Test results that arrived after his death showed he was Kashmir’s third Covid-19 casualty.
He died surrounded by family in the Covid-19 ward at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar. A relative who was there said that, even in the afternoon of April 6, the patient was talking normally and did not show any sign of severe discomfort. “He was chatting with us,” he said. “Late afternoon, he asked us to bring him something to eat. We got him bread and soup. He enjoyed it.”
Then around 7 pm, the ailing trader told his family that he would lie down and relax. “That was it,” said the relative. “He closed his eyes and died. We were puzzled. How could this be?”
At the hospital
At least 12 members of the Baramulla grocer’s family have tested positive for the virus. Eleven members of the Bandipora fruit trader’s family also tested positive. Three of them had accompanied the patient to the hospital in Srinagar.
Both families speak of harrowing experiences at the government hospitals. Both families alleged they were forced to enter Covid-19 wards without proper protective gear.
“I went inside a ward full of Covid-19 patients at the chest diseases hospital at least four times in the night,” said the son of the Baramulla patient. “I was wearing no gloves. I had a mask that I had bought for Rs 20 at SMHS hospital. The hospital staff told me that they don’t have any protective gear for themselves, let alone for attendants.”
He claimed the hospital staff even asked him to fix the oxygen mask on his father and also asked if he knew how to operate a nebuliser. “I am sure that I got infected at the hospital and not at home,” he said.
Naveed Nazir Shah,the official in charge of Covid-19 patients at the Government Chest Disease Hospital, said that he did not know of any negligence on the part of doctors who were on duty that day. “What they have told me is that they [family members] were given gowns, gloves and masks, everything,” he said. “I will make you meet them and they will tell you the truth about what happened that day.”
Shah also said that the patient’s sons had refused to put him on a ventilator: “We have all the proof,” he said. “His son gave it in writing. So if there was some 10%-20% chance [of his survival], they nullified that as well.”
The fruit trader’s family alleged no doctor came to attend to the patient at the Covid-19 ward in Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital. “There was someone from the paramedical staff who administered some injections and tablets to my uncle,” said the trader’s nephew. “The same paramedic took his blood samples. Apart from that, not a single doctor visited my uncle or explained his condition to us. All this while, we were with him in the ward.”
When he was declared dead, the hospital staff asked his family to shift the body to Government Medical College next door. “We lifted the body and wrapped it in blankets,” said his nephew. “They made us wait for the body for 24 hours in the rain. They were telling us the test reports hadn’t come. Until then, all of us were together, waiting. Shouldn’t they have isolated us immediately?”
Samia Rashid, principal of the Government Medical College, Srinagar, did not take calls from Scroll.in.
‘Source of infection still unknown’
Officials are still searching for the source of infection in each case. Unlike the first patient who died in Kashmir, a 65-year-old man who had recently travelled to Delhi and Agra, neither had ventured out of the Valley recently. Officials could not immediately establish that they came into contact with anyone with travel history either.
The fruit trader lived in Gund Jahangir, part of Bandipora’s Hajin Block. The village is close to Hajin town, which has emerged as one of the hot spots of COVID-19 cases in Kashmir. Authorities have declared at least 12 areas in Bandipora district as red zones. Most of these villages are in Hajin block.
According to the Covid Kashmir Tracker, a website that compiles data on cases in Kashmir, Bandipora district is the worst affected after Srinagar. On April 10, the district had 35 cases while Srinagar had 49 cases.
It is also possible that he had visited Sopore town, about 20 kilometres away from his village and another hotspot. That was 10-12 days before he was admitted to hospital, said a senior health official in Baramulla district, where Sopore is located. “He was accompanying someone to the doctor for a checkup,” said the health official. “But we haven’t been able to trace that until now. They say it was in Sopore but we are not sure yet.”
The official also said that they were tracking his relatives in Sopore town. “As per reports, one of his relatives lives in Amargarh, Sopore,” he said. “We have quarantined them. Now, we are taking their history and checking if he had visited the family or not.”
According to officials in Sopore, seven Covid-19 positive cases have been reported from the area so far. The first case was reported around March 23, said Asif Khanday, the Sopore block medical officer. On April 10, four people who were under quarantine had also tested positive, he said. The 65-year-old who became Kashmir’s first Covid-19 casualty had attended a religious gathering at Sopore shortly before he was diagnosed with the infection.
The grocer from Baramulla district lived in Tangmarg, a sparsely populated area in the mountains, more than 50 km away from the nearest hotspot.
Saba Wani, block medical officer at Tangmarg, said health officials were still tracking the source of infection. “Contact tracing takes time,” she said. “So far, we have not yet come to a conclusion.”
There were apprehensions that he might have got the infection from a couple who had returned from a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in late February. “They live in our neighbourhood and we share the same mosque,” said his son. “It’s true that my father met them but they returned way back in February.”
Wani, who confirmed that the couple had tested negative, felt there was no link between them and the infection that killed the 65-year-old grocer.
Scroll.in also sent written queries to Kashmir Divisional Commissioner Pandurang K Pole. This report will be updated if he responds.
Over in a day
Both families recount similar experiences – frantically dashing from hospital to hospital and then watching helplessly as a loved one slipped away.
On the morning of April 6, the fruit trader, his wife and two male relatives drove down in their own car to a private hospital in Palhallan, also in Baramulla district.
“He was diabetic and we thought his sugar level had gone up,” said the trader’s nephew, who had gone with his uncle to the hospital. “We got an X-ray done and some blood tests. We didn’t consult a doctor.”
But when the X-ray showed signs of severe pneumonia, the family decided to take him to Srinagar, more than 30 km away from Palhallan. Once they reached Srinagar, they made their way to the Government Chest Disease Hospital, one of the designated centres for Covid-19 patients in Kashmir. “But they turned us away,” said the trader’s nephew. “They told us that only patients with a travel history outside J&K were admitted at the hospital.”
They decided to take him to the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, also in Srinagar. “He was kept at the emergency ward for some minutes and then shifted to a Covid-19 isolation ward,” said his nephew. “There were four patients inside the ward. My uncle was the fifth one.”
By evening, he was dead.
For days, the family could not believe that he had died of Covid-19. “There was simply no way for him to contract the infection,” said the relative. “He had no travel history and didn’t meet anyone from outside. In fact, even under normal circumstances, he would be home most of the time.”
A downhill journey
In Tangmarg, too, the grocer’s family is still trying to understand his sudden death. When he developed a fever on March 21, they took him to a local government hospital.
“On March 25, his condition worsened and we took him to the hospital again,” said his son, who is currently in isolation at Government Medical College, Baramulla. “They did a chest X-ray and some tests. After the reports showed pneumonia and infection, we were referred to Srinagar.”
The patient was admitted at the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital. “He was kept in the emergency ward for the night and on the morning of March 26, we were shifted to a general ward,” said his son. Later in the day, he was shifted to an isolation ward and his samples were collected for a coronavirus test. “The same day, we were informed that he’s tested negative. All this while my father was in a lot of pain and he had trouble breathing.”
After the patient had spent two days in the isolation ward, the doctors changed their opinion, said his son. “They told us that he had tested positive and referred us to the Chest Disease Hospital,” he recalled.
He was admitted there on the evening of March 28. He died later that night.
“What baffles me is that my father lived in a separate house with my brother, his wife and our mother,” said the son in isolation at Baramulla, who lives in a separate house about 500 feet away. “None of them tested positive, even though they were in direct contact with him. In my family, my wife, my eight-year-old daughter and I have it. Apart from us, nine people from my in-laws and sister-in-law’s family, who also live in our village, tested positive. All of us are under isolation at GMC, Baramulla.”
He had not gone home to Tangmarg since March 25, when he took his father to hospital in Srinagar. “After we buried my father on March 29, we were taken directly for quarantine,” he said.