Morgue attendants at the Dhaka Medical College came to pick up a dead woman’s body from a ward of the hospital. As they moved to pick her up, the “deceased” woman started moving her feet.
Three hours earlier, around 2pm, Dr Nilufa Nila, an honorary physician at one of Bangladesh’s most important public hospitals, had declared her dead. A death-certificate was issued and a ward boy named Belal went to the morgue with the certificate.
Morgue in-charge Nure Alam Babu received the papers and prepared for an autopsy, sources at the college confirmed.
“When we declared her dead, we could not feel a pulse. Her body had become like a dead person…It was a misunderstanding. The patient is now well,” Nilufa said when asked what had happened. She then inserted a needle into the patient’s body to administer intravenous nutrition.
An on-duty doctor, on condition of anonymity, said: “The patient had no attendant with her. Because of that, she did not receive proper lab tests or medicines. She had an irregular pulse and was very weak.
“The woman seemed to be a vagabond. She was kept outside the ward near the lift, without any facilities, because she smelled awful.” Before she had “died,” the woman was not even diagnosed.
DMCH Director Brig Gen Mustafizur Rahman said: “We are looking into the matter. The concerned doctor will be punished after a probe into the incident.”
Suffering from malnutrition, the patient was picked up from the street in critical condition and brought to the hospital on December 2.
As her identity could not be determined, the college prepared for an autopsy after issuing the death certificate.
As the patients’ “corpse” was being taken to the morgue for autopsy, Aziz, a morgue worker, saw the hands and feet of the body he was carrying move. He reported the incident to a ward boy.
Belal, the ward boy, then took death certificate to the duty doctor. The “alive-again” woman was sent to bed six at ward 802, unit seven of the medicine department inside the new building of DMCH.
According to the victim’s registration file, the hospital director himself referred her to be admitted. The director told the Dhaka Tribune that he noticed the woman lying on a footpath adjacent to the hospital gate when the hospital authorities were conducting a drive against illegal hawkers and establishments. He asked his staff to get her admitted to DMCH to take proper care of her.