Yunus Y. Lasania
Hyderabad: Doctors at the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) have raised eyebrows over the “secret” manner in which OGH Superintendent Dr. B. Nagender’s coronavirus (Covid-19) treatment has been undertaken. They claim he is currently undergoing treatment at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS), and that the entire matter was kept under wraps from the start.
“We got to know about it only a week ago, but more importantly, he has not been working in the way it was being reporting in the media. It has been stated that he may have got infected while attending cases in the wards. The irony is that the superintendent did not step into any ward from the beginning,” said a junior doctor from OGH, who did not want to be quoted.
Another doctor pointed out that more importantly is the fact that Dr. Nagender may have met many officials and senior doctors as part of his routine work. “If such a person is infected with Covid-19, then at least contact tracing must be done. We were told that he met members of the ruling part, senior government officials and others from the hospital. It puts many others also at risk,” another doctor informed.
The first doctor quoted above also stated that his colleagues from OGH were also specifically asked not to talk about Dr. Nagender’s testing positive for Covid-19. However, this is not the only issue currently plaguing the age-old hospital, which was built around the late 1920s during the reign of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of the erstwhile Hyderabad State.
The writer is a Hyderabad-based journalist, who has previously worked for The New Indian Express, The Hindu and Mint.