Staff Correspondence
Port Blair, April 08: A seaman of MV Bharat Seema (currently at Dry-Dock in Mumbai) namely Mr. Yadav Rao, 43 years, resident of Port Blair died due to some health issues today while he was being shifted to hospital from Mumbai port at around 4.00 PM.
The crew members of ship alleged that this unfortunate incident happened just because of the negligence of the Captain of the ship.
“Mr. Yadav was unwell since last one and a half month and he is continuously requesting the master for a leave for check up but he was not allowed to go for check up” said a colleague of the deceased, who does not want his name to be quoted.
Andaman Sheekha also learned that there are 06 seamen in the ship who have been tested COVID-19 positive and nearly 20 others are having symptoms of Corona since then.
It is still not clear how COVID-19 spread inside the ship. But it is learnt that the Captain is the only person in the ship with sole pass to go out. “Only he went out of ship, and no one else,” he said.
Relatives and friends of the deceased are now demanding that the Director of Shipping Services and the SCI must fix responsibility in this case for negligence, which lead to the death of the seaman. They demanded stringent legal and departmental action on officials who were responsible for this death.
The Secretary of Forward Seamen’s Union of India, Mr, Dinesh Ram has confirmed the death of the seaman to Andaman Sheekha.
“Not even an ambulance was arranged to transfer the patient to hospital, the seaman was sent in a private vehicle after his condition got worst,” Mr Dinesh said.
Sources said that even after knowing very well that Mr. Yadav Rao was having breathing problem since morning and he was given oxygen inside the ship, Mr. Rao was sent in a private vehicle and not an ambulance, without any oxygen support and hence he died on the way to hospital.
Mr. Dinesh requested the Andaman administration to intervene in this matter and take action against the responsible officials for this loss.
When contacted a top officers of Directorate of Shipping Services told Andaman Sheekha that the department heard about the death but SCI has not confirmed about the death yet. “We only got this information that at 3.00 PM one sailor reported breathing problem and immediately he was taken to hospital by SCI, the officer said.
