Rat Bit Eye Of Patient In Coma At Mumbai Hospital, Alleges Family

Mumbai: A comatose patient's eye was reportedly bitten by rats at a hospital in Mumbai's Jogeshwari, on April 23. The father of 27-year-old Parminder Gupta, alleged that rats nibbled the right eyelid of his son, at the government-run Bal Thackeray Trauma Care Hospital.

The hospital authorities have denied any negligence on their part.

Ram Gupta, the father told news agency ANI, that he saw blood on his son's right eyelid in the morning, and earlier during the night he had shooed off two rats near his son's hospital bed. "We had seen rats in the general ward earlier also, but we didn't see the rats biting him," said Mr Gupta.

Parminder was in the ICU of a private hospital since March, after he suffered a head injury following a road accident, say reports. He was operated upon for blood clots in his brain but he never quite gained consciousness after that. After the hospital bills climbed to over Rs 6 lakh, his father, who works at a flour mill, shifted him to a government hospital.

Mr Gupta alleged the doctors moved his son out of the ICU to the general ward on April 21, even though his son was still in coma and in a delicate condition.

The hospital administrator, however, denied the incident, claiming it as an "alleged conspiracy" to malign the hospital's reputation. The district authorities have initiated an investigation, say reports.

Last October, a similar incident had taken place at the state-run Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital in Kandivali. A 68-year-old paralysed woman was bitten by a rat on her left eye.
Reports say, both the traumacare centre in Jogeshwari and and the civic hospital in Kandivali are among those that were renovated recently by the Maharashtra government.