Cherruppu : Following Covid deaths that resulted from lack of treatment, the District Medical Officer visited Shanthibhavan Palliative Care in Thrissur and ordered it shut. The private palliative nursing home is located in Vallachira Panchayat in Pallissery.
Several inmates at the nursing home were admitted for palliative care with quite a few who were Covid-positive but without much treatment for the disease, Yet, the nursing home was unwilling to let go its patients to better equipped hospitals and continued administering their namesake treatment to the ill persons. The lone doctor at the nursing home has been for well over a month now after contacting Covid.
Incidentally, the nursing home does not share information on Covid patients with the state’s Health Department. Three persons died of Covid in the past one week alone of whom, body of a Kollam native was released to his family with false assurance that he was Covid negative. Anxious about the cause , the relatives had the body tested, which is when they discovered the virus malady. Following the deception, they lodged a complaint with district medical officers and the Panchayat president, in follow-up of which the DMO doctor Rejina reached the nursing home and carried a flash inspection.
The DMO came by several serious treatment and procedural lapses and 9 of remaining Covid-positive inmates were then removed to Thrissur Medical College. Antigen tests were also conducted on other patients and their bystanders following which, two more were diagnosed with the virus.
Others, who were not seriously ill were sent back to their homes. Vallachira Panchayat President N Manoj and Block Panchayat member NT Sajeevan also had reached the site.
