Daijiworld Media Network - Ahmedabad (SD)

Ahmedabad, Apr 15: While civil hospitals generally segregate patients based on their gender, the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital seemed to have reportedly segregated wards of coronavirus patients based on religion keeping the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims in two separate wards.

Insiders of the hospital said that the decision was taken after a large number of cases were reported from a single community following a religious gathering in Delhi, thereafter from their contacts. However, officials from the hospital refused to comment on the matter.

The state health department strongly denied the reports segregated based on religion and said that the patients were segregated based on the severity of symptoms and age and purely on the advice of the doctors treating them.

Data show that more than 50 percent of the cases in Ahmedabad emerged from a single cluster of minority pockets in the city.

A doctor from the hospital not revealing his identity said that some of the Hindu patients were not comfortable being in the same ward as those with the Muslim community.

Therefore, he said, "After some patients complained, it was decided to segregate them temporarily."