Safdarjung reports 52 deaths, Delhi govt alleges delay

On May 9, The Indian Express had reported that there was a mismatch between the death toll reported by four hospitals and that shared by the Delhi government in its health bulletin.

Alleging delay on the part of Safdarjung Hospital, the Delhi government said the Centre-run hospital had Tuesday sent its death audit committee a list of 52 patients who died of Covid over the past two months.

The Covid toll in Delhi is 303.

As per the protocol, each hospital in Delhi has to report deaths of all Covid patients by email to the district surveillance unit and to the state surveillance unit, along with scanned copies of the case summary, medical files and all relevant data required by the death audit committee, by 5 pm every day.

The death summaries shared by the hospitals are then assessed by a three-member audit committee, formed by the government on April 20.

“All Delhi government hospitals are submitting their reports to the committee daily. Safdarjung Hospital has submitted reports of 52 fatalities only today. It had reported only four deaths till now,” a government spokesperson said.

Denying the state government’s allegations, Dr Balvinder Singh, the medical superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital, told The Indian Express, “There is some miscommunication. The data shared by us is cumulative data from February 1 to May 16, as asked by Delhi government. The state government is trying to update their own data from different hospitals and had asked us to share the cumulative number as they wanted it to tally with that in individual hospitals. The number matched with the data they had and the idea was to see if there is any discrepancy. We haven’t delayed sharing death summaries. Every detail of our patient goes to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.”

The hospital has reported 69 Covid deaths so far, as per its records, Dr Singh said.

On May 9, The Indian Express had reported that there was a mismatch between the death toll reported by four hospitals and that shared by the Delhi government in its health bulletin.