As Chhattisgarh man dies in govt hospital, ants found feeding on his wounds

Raipur: In a case of alleged medical negligence, a 30-year-old man died at a government hospital in Chhattisgarh’s Koriya district due to lack of medical care, even as ants fed on his wounds and bedsores for two days.

The man was found lying unconscious and bleeding from a head wound outside a Manendragarh primary health centre 10 days ago, a report in The Times of India said. No one bothered for him until BJP MLA from Manendragarh, Shyam Bihari Jaiswal, pulled up the health centre’s employees.

The man was given initial treatment at the centre and was later shifted to the government hospital at Baikunthpur area of Koriya district where he laid untreated for days.

After receiving a tip-off, the media reached the hospital and were horrified to find ants swarming over his wounds.

A local human rights activist, who had informed them, said that ants fed on his wounds for at least two days, NDTV reported.

Though doctors denied charges of negligence, they admitted that ants had “climbed into his bed sores” because the hospital sweeper was not available, the TOI report added.

The man's illness was never diagnosed and he died on Monday.

The victim was also given glucose intravenously and the doctors said the glucose could have attracted ants to his bedsores. They also said there were too many patients to focus on one.

"It's monsoon and ants are everywhere, even at our homes. There may have been one or two ants on his arm. There were no attendants and we are unable to pay too much attention to a single patient. We had given him glucose which is sweet in nature so the ants must have climbed the bed because of that. But there was no negligence on our part," Dr Mukesh Kumar Hela was quoted by NDTV as saying.

The man is yet to be identified and no complaint has been filed in the case as of now.