A viral video on social media shot from inside Gandhi hospital showed two persons in PPE gear seated on the floor besides an elevator. A man can be seen asking the two women their identity but the response is barely audible in the 1.16-minute video. Several social media accounts shared the video clip claiming the two persons were patients left unattended at Gandhi, the nodal hospital for treating COVID-19 patients in Telangana.

However, a spokesperson for Gandhi hospital (from the Health Ministers office) refuted the claim, the spokesperson said the two persons in the video were class IV sanitation staff who were resting after finishing their 12-hour shift.

"They were waiting for their transportation home and resting at the spot. They are wearing full Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits, patients only wear masks when moving between two locations within the hospital.”

A resident doctor from Gandhi hospital after viewing the video also said the two persons are sanitation staff, “The video was shot in the ground floor near the triage area when incoming patients are checked in. These are sanitation workers in the video but the area is often used by patients to sit and wait for the ward boy who comes down the lift to take the patients to the seventh floor. Even we wait there sometimes for the senior doctors to come down to give us some reports. There are no seats at the spot."

Videos of patients from within Gandhi hospital, some taken moments before their death had gone viral on social media earlier. In all the videos the patients could be heard complaining about the lack of adequate patient care at the hospital. Instances of bodies of COVID-19 patients getting swapped, a patient gone missing and and his body ending up among unidentified bodies in the morgue were also reported from the hospital since the start of the pandemic in March.

The Health Department has since then tried to improve the public perception of the hospital by recording positive reviews given by patients who are getting treated at Gandhi hospital, but without much luck, “Gandhi has treated and discharged over 5,000 COVID-19 patients but a few negative videos have got more eyeballs than the videos of positive reviews about the hospital,” the spokesperson added.