Unable to breathe, taken off ventilator: Hyderabad man's last video message to father before dying of Covid-19

A video of a man recording a message to his father from a hospital bed minuted before he died has left the nation in shock and outrage. The man, who was suffering from coronavirus, died hours later as the hospital allegedly removed oxygen support despite his pleas that he was struggling to breathe, the Hindustan Times reported.

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“They have removed the ventilator and have not been responding to my plea for the last three hours to provide oxygen support.... Only lungs are working, but I am unable to breathe, daddy. Bye daddy. Bye all, bye daddy,” the man said in the video message to his father from the bed of the Government Chest Hospital, Erragadda in Hyderabad.

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The video message was recorded almost an hour before the hospital declared the man dead on Friday, June 26, multiple media reports suggested.

“My son was suffering from high fever on June 24. After trying for admission in a few hospitals, he was finally admitted to the Chest Hospital on June 24, where he succumbed on June 26,” the father, who hails from Jawaharnagar, Hyderabad told HT.

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"My son asked for help, but no one helped him. I saw the video only after I returned home after the last rites, and he said 'bye daddy'," the father told NDTV. "What happened to my son should not happen to anyone else. Why was my son denied oxygen? Did anyone else need it urgently and so they took it away from him? When I hear that video of my son, my heart breaks," he added.

The hospital’s superintendent, Mehboob Khan, however, denied the allegation that the ventilator was removed, according to HT report. “The ventilator support was very much there, but the patient was in such a critical stage that he could not feel the oxygen supply,” he said.

Stating that this wasn’t the fault of the doctors and the fact that this was a new phenomenon that they have been observing with patients recently, Khan said: “We have come across such cases in the last few days. Usually, aged people die because of the collapse of the lungs infected by Covid-19. We are seeing a new phenomenon of people in the age group of 25-40 years succumbing because of viral infection in the heart. They will be provided oxygen but they feel it insufficient.”

At least six members of the deceased's family are said to be exposed to the virus. "We got the test results so late and the hospital just handed over the body. We have all been exposed. But no one is conducting any tests on us. I have two young grandchildren, my son's 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son, who still don't even know their father is dead. What should I do?" the father told HT.