Amaravati, Jul 24 (IANS): Alleged apathy of authorities at a government-run hospital in Andhra Pradesh's Anantapur town led to the death of a man, who succumbed in the hospital premises after battling breathing problems for nearly five hours.

With the hospital authorities refusing to admit 55-year-old construction worker Raju, he was lying on the ground under a tree, gasping for birth. His wife and daughter kept pleading with the hospital staff to admit him and supply him oxygen.

The heart-rending incident occurred in the early hours of Friday at Anantapur government general hospital, which is also a Covid-19 treatment facility.

Raju's wife Kalavati and pregnant daughter brought him from Dharmavaram town to the hospital in Anantapur around 3 a.m. However, they were not allowed into the hospital building and were made to wait under a tree at the main entrance.

Kalavati and her daughter took turns to help Raju and on the other hand, go to the hospital staff, begging them to shift him to the ward but were asked to wait till 10 a.m.

Though Kalavati told them that her husband would die by then, they paid no heed and around 8 a.m., Raju breathed his last.

She said Raju would have survived if the hospital staff had provided him some respiratory support.

When the visuals of the man's death outside the hospital building went viral, few hospital employees in PPE kits shifted the body to the mortuary.

Hospital superintendent Dr Ramaswamy Naik, however, said Raju was brought to the hospital at the last minute. He said doctors informed him that he succumbed by the time they arranged for shifting him to the ward.