Hospital union and family of deceased lab assistant say he lay unattended for hours

The death of an employee of Sassoon General Hospital admitted to one of its wards has prompted the hospital union and his family to accuse the hospital of negligence. They have even demanded an inquiry into the matter.
Umesh Vasudev Mogarkar (41), lab assistant at Physiology Department of the hospital, died on Friday evening. He had acute diabetes.

The hospital union has charged the doctors who treated him with negligence. "The hospital staff member's death at Sassoon is probably the first incident of its kind in the past 10 years," said Dinesh Kuchekar, leader, Sarva Mazdoor Sanghatana. "Our union is treating Mogarkar's death as a case of negligence and we want a probe into the cause of his death." Kuchekar alleged Mogarkar was totally ignored for five hours in the ward.

According to Mogarkar's family, he was admitted to ward number 14 and his haemogram showed a level of 6g.

His ECG was also abnormal and he was advised blood transfusion. They said none of the doctors attended him for three hours. "He could have been saved if he had been treated in time," a member of the family said. The family said that to hide their negligence, the doctors shifted Mogarkar to the ICU and put him on a ventilator after his death.u00a0 The post-mortem showed heart failure as cause of death.

Mogarkar is survived by wife Archana, two daughters and a son. Archana has filed a case under section 304 (A) (causing death) of IPC against the hospital doctors at the Bund Garden police station. Mogarkar had been with Sassoon for 18 years. His family is asking for compensation and requesting the hospital management to give Archana a job at Sassoon on the grounds that Mogarkar was the family's only earning member.