Parents allege medical negligence in infant’s death

The parents of a four-month-old child from Manjeri who died of COVID-19 at the Government Medical College Hospital, Kozhikode, on April 24, have alleged that the infant’s death was due to failure in treatment and not because of coronavirus.

Addressing the media here on Wednesday, the child’s parents, Mohammed Ashraf and Ashifa, alleged a conspiracy behind linking their four-month-old daughter’s death to COVID-19. They also demanded a comprehensive investigation into the death of the child.

They said the child was wrongly tested positive for COVID-19. “The second test and the test conducted after the death all were negative. None of us who took care of the child had contracted They tested 33 of us in the family, and none was found positive. The health authorities say our child died of coronavirus, but they could not say how she contracted the virus,” the parents said.

They said there were desperate attempts to somehow link the family with a COVID-19 patient. They also alleged that the first test conducted on the child at the virology laboratory in Alappuzha was negative.

“What we saw from the authorities was an attempt to cover up their fault,” they said.

They said they had applied under the Right To Information Act for the results of the child’s tests.