A 42-year-old man died hours after a ceiling fan, believed to have fallen upon him, fatally wounded him at his treatment at the emergency ward of Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) hospital in Delhi on Saturday night.
According to hospital officials who know the case, the deceased, named Md Akbar, was admitted on July 18 due to complaints of hypertension, meningoencephalitis, and aspiration pneumonia.
The accident took place about 9.30 pm while a nurse officer was attending the patient at Emergency Ward 27. The ceiling fan was said to have become detached from the ceiling during the treatment and landed on Akbar’s bed.
A nursing officer was also injured in the incident as he was providing medical care, hospital sources said. The patient and staff were injured as a result of the collapse.
Akbar died around 12:16 am, less than three hours after the incident, despite medical assistance.
The official cause of the death has been considered as, hypertension, meningoencephalitis and aspiration pneumonia as per death certificate. It bears no mention that the death, as such, is a result of the injuries sustained due to the falling fan.
The incident has sparked scrutiny around hospital’s infrastructure, looking at standards of maintenance and safety, especially in emergency treatment areas where patients and healthcare workers continue to have risks to consider.
Hospital officials will look into the incident, and a number of questions remain over whether a top government hospital in Delhi, where the incident took place, employed adequate preventive maintenance measures and had sufficient conditions.