Victim's mother blame Kasturba

MUMBAI: Pratima Lavangare's death last Thursday has triggered a fresh round of blame game.
Pratima , the mother of the victim, 23-year-old Pallavi from Kalyan, who succumbed to the H1N1 virus on Thursday, has held Kasturba Hospital responsible for her daughter's death. "We went to Kasturba after doctors at the private hospital where Pallavi was initially admitted suspected that she might be H1N1-positive.But the doctors at Kasturba said she was not even an H1N1 suspect and sent us back,'' Pratima told TOI.
BMC additional municipal commissioner Manisha Mhaiskar, however, said, "The patient was examined on August 29 and given 10 Tamiflu tablets right then. Her swab was also taken for examination.''
On August 21, Pallavi returned from Pune__where she worked at an IT firm__with cough and other minor ailments. Initially, she went to her family physician but when she failed to respond to the treatmet, Pallavi was taken to a private hospital in Kalyan. There, her condition deteriorated and she had to be put on a ventilator. On August 29, she was transferred to Kasturba. "The doctors there told us that she did not have any symptom of H1N1. They even asked us to bring a better copy of her chest X-ray, which we did the day after,'' Pratima said. "They sent her back home.''
On August 31, the test results showed that Pallavi was H1N1-positive. Immediately she was taken to Kasturba Hospital again from where she was latershifted to Nair Hospital.
BMC executive health officer Jairaj Thanekar said, "The family's allegations are baseless. The moment we got her test results, not only did we admit her to our hospotal but also gave Tamiflu to the rest of the family.'' He also asked, "Why did the family not come to us right after she returned from Pune with swine flu symptoms, why did they wait for six days?''
The Lavangares are inconsolable. After Pallavi's father died last year, she__the only earning member of the family__had been shouldering the responsibility of educating her younger brother and sister.