Mangaluru: Twitter users on Sunday demanded justice for Khatija Jasmeen, a pregnant woman from Mangaluru who was allegedly denied treatment at various hospitals after testing positive for COVID-19.
According to the allegations labeled by the patient through a press meet, Dr. Priya Ballal, a local Gynecologist who was treating Jasmeen used her influence to deny admission to Jasmeen to various hospitals in the city after she tested positive for the virus.
The allegations added Jasmeen was into her last trimester of pregnancy when the incident took place in the third week of May. It further added that 31-year-old Jasmeen complained of cold and flu to Dr. Priya who advised her to take medication and rest at home.
When her condition partially deteriorated and she experienced fever, the family once again contacted Dr. Priya who asked Jasmeen to undergo a COVID test. The test returned positive and Dr. Priya asked Jasmeen to get admitted to her hospital for 15 days.
Jasmeen tried consulting other doctors as she didn’t support the idea of getting admitted to the hospital for 15 days. Jasmeen’s family took her to another private hospital in the city. After initially checking the patient and going through Dr. Priya’s prescription for the patient doctors at the hospital contacted Dr. Priya and after the call refused treatment to Jasmeen.
The same dilemma for the patient continued at the next nine hospitals in the city where Dr. Priya allegedly denied admission to the patient using her influence.
Twitter users started a campaign with #StopMedicalMafia and #JusticeForJasmeen that grossed over one lakh tweets slamming the doctor and behavior of the hospitals in the city at the time of a pandemic and in a place that is known as the medical hub of Coastal Karnataka.