Bengaluru, May 7 (IANS): In a day of dramatic developments, a Covid positive patient's family staged a sit-in protest outside the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha on Thursday to secure a hospital bed for treatment.
The incident took place hours after a Covid patient died on his way to the hospital after his family members pleaded for a hospital bed in front of Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa's official residence Cauvery.
Even though the CMO officials made arrangements for a bed and an ambulance, the patient was reportedly declared brought dead by the hospital authorities. After this incident, the CMO blocked all the approach roads leading to CM's residence.
In the second incident, unable to find a hospital bed, a woman along with her daughter drove to the Vidhana Soudha in an ambulance carrying her Covid positive husband and demanded a bed for his treatment.
Stopped by the police, the woman and her relatives launched a sit-in protest in front of the Vidhan Soudha. Later, Karnataka Congress MLA N.A. Harris' son Mohammed Nalapad also reached the spot and joined the protest.
After about half-an-hour, Chief Secretary P. Ravi Kumar finally arranged a bed for the Covid patient at the government-run Victoria Hospital.
Nalpad was taken into custody by the police after they sent the ambulance to the hospital.
Shortage of beds at the hospitals is a crisis that has been unfolding in several parts of Karnataka ever since the state came under the grip of the raging second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Karnataka has been reporting a daily spike of more than 50,000 Covid cases for the past two days, with Bengaluru being the epicentre of the disease outbreak.