Twenty-year-old Radesh, a resident of Dubbacherla village in Maheshwaram mandal, Telangana, was grieving his mother’s loss and conducting her funeral, when his father called from the hospital where he was undergoing treatment for COVID-19, alleging the staff was not attending to him. His father was unaware that the mother had died. Hours later, Radesh lost his father, too.
Earlier this week, Radesh, his parents and cousin brother were diagnosed with COVID-19. While Radesh was asymptomatic and was in home quarantine, his family was admitted to a private hospital for treatment. However, this tragedy would soon turn into Radesh’s worst nightmare, tearing him apart emotionally. After his cousin brother died, his mother, too, succumbed to the disease.
On Tuesday (July 28), Radesh was making funeral arrangements for his beloved mother. Being the only son, Radesh, despite his ill health due to COVID-19, was to make all the necessary arrangements for the funeral.
Amidst this, his father, who was battling COVID-19 in the Intensive Care Unit ward of Deccan Hospital in Somajiguda, Hyderabad, unaware of his wife’s funeral, asked Radesh to rush to the hospital as he had relieved himself on the bed due to the lack of help from the hospital staff.
Radesh, who was caught up, tried reaching out to the hospital for nearly four hours but to no avail, he alleged.
“As my mother died, I was in my native village occupied with the funeral. I told the phone attendee at the hospital that I would come and change the diapers. The attendee said he would ask the staff to take care of his father. Within another half an hour, my father called me again, asking if I was coming to the hospital. Then again at 7 pm, he called me saying that nobody came to clean him. After I lashed out at the staff, they finally changed the diapers,” Radesh alleged.
Shortly after this incident, around 9.30 pm, the hospital informed that Radesh’s father passed away. “I paid lakhs of rupees to the hospital but they did not even clean my father,” an emotional Radesh told the media.
Further narrating his ordeal on Twitter, which went viral, Radesh said that along with his mother and father, his cousin brother too was admitted in the same hospital and none of them survived. “We have paid about Rs 40 lakh for the treatment of all three of them but nobody came back home. How worse is that?” he wrote.
My dad was treating in “ Deccan Hospital Somajiguda “
— Anreddy Radhesh (@anreddy_radhesh) July 30, 2020
We are from Maheshwaram mandal Dubbacherla village #justiceforasnr
Radesh further alleged that despite the poor service by Deccan Hospital, they refused to release his father’s body unless he cleared the medical bill amounting to Rs 7.5 lakh.
The 20-year-old also sought action against a police Inspector who did not allow Radesh’s family to take the Outer Ring Road (ORR) despite sharing their plight that they were on their way to the hospital to collect the father’s dead body. Owing to the COVID-19 lockdown, ORR closes down at 10 pm for general traffic. Radesh alleged that though they were just seven minutes late, the Inspector, Raju at Pedda Golconda exit, spoke harshly.