View of Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital.
While the family of Venu, a 48-year-old from Kollam, who died at the Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital on Wednesday (November 7, 2025), while undergoing treatment for a heart attack, alleged that the patient did not receive proper care and attention at the hospital, the MCH authorities reiterated that there was never any lapse in the patient’s care.
“The patient was admitted as soon as he got here and was given the best care that could be given to a heart attack patient. He was given every treatment according to the established treatment protocol. He was not a candidate for primary angioplasty because it was more than 30 hours after the heart attack and therefore he was under medical supervision and was stable till Wednesday evening,” Professor and Head of Cardiology Mathew told the media on Friday.
“The patient was stable after the heart attack he suffered, his blood pressure and heart rhythm were stable. But heart failure is a known complication after heart attacks and his condition suddenly worsened on Wednesday evening and he was transferred to the ICU,” Dr Iype said.
However, these explanations do not appear to have dispelled the family’s belief that Venu could have been saved if emergency angiography and subsequent angioplasty had been performed in time.
Lack of communication
This raises the question of whether the details of the patient’s treatment—the fact that Venu was not a candidate for primary angioplasty for several reasons—were properly communicated to the patient and his family.
Senior MCH doctors said that even as they tried to inform patients’ families about the patient’s condition and treatment process, it was becoming increasingly impossible in a hospital that was totally bogged down by overcrowding and acute shortage of staff at all levels.
“Doctors are taking care of so many patients at once that they simply don’t have time to counsel patients’ families. We have an acute shortage of nursing staff on the wards and we don’t have any care coordinators or patient counselors or health social workers like you would find in private hospitals who deal exclusively with patients’ families,” said the chief doctor.
“It is also true that many young doctors on duty or residents who go on rounds have no idea how to speak and explain medicine in layman’s terms to patients or their families,” he added.
Overflowing department
MCH and SAT together have over 3,000 beds, but at any given time there are hundreds of inpatients who have to be accommodated on a floor. None can be rejected because they all require serious care.
“Our wards are overcrowded as every medical emergency or patient requiring critical care ends up at MCH from hospitals in the periphery. Although all districts have cath labs, most of them do not have technicians or cardiologists on duty 24 hours a day. Kollam Medical College has only one cardiologist and despite our best attempts, we have not been able to get anyone to join there.”
The medical education service, once considered the most elite and sought-after career option, is no longer attractive to young doctors. The work pressure is huge, the quality of life is bad, the financial remuneration is inadequate and there are a lot of bricks, he emphasized.
Published – 07 Nov 2025 20:43 IST
