Doctors Association Kashmir seeks audit of COVID-19 deaths

ZT NEWS NETWORK

Srinagar:

In the wake of the continuous spike in Covid-19 related deaths, Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) Saturday demanded an Audit Committee for the deaths saying that people across J&K are confused about who died due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President DAK, Dr Suhail Naik 8n a statement to Ziraat Times said it is very important that every death should be discussed by a committee to know what was underlying cause of death (UCOD), immediate cause of death, and factors leading to the immediate cause, and co-morbidities.

“There is lot of confusion among people that how bucketing of deceased is done and are classified into Covid-19 or non Covid death,” he said.

Citing an example of death of a boy from Handwara, Dr Naik said that many deaths have medico-legal aspects and outcome of probe and subsequent punishment under law may change by providing a wrong death certificate.

He said an accurate count of the number of deaths caused due to COVID–19 infection, which depends in part on proper death certification, is critical to ongoing public health surveillance, response and policy switching.

The Death Audit committee should  go through the case sheets, investigations, and death summary of the deceased before classifying it as a Covid-19 death, Dr Naik said.

“The audit committee should follow the guidelines prescribed by the ICMR and all hospitals should submit their death summaries to the committee within 24 hours,” he demanded.

So far, 75 people have died after tested positive for Covid-19 in J&K includes 66  from Kashmir while over 5600 people have been infected by the virus.