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Patna, Feb. 16: Dubbed the state capital’s “premier” health hub, the Patna Medical College and Hospital has got nothing premier about it when it comes to emergency services.
On Tuesday, The Telegraph went around the emergency ward of the hospital and what the team saw belies the government’s claim of improved healthcare infrastructure.
X-Ray, CT scan — the basic equipment to diagnose medical problems — do not work and there are hardly any drugs available. Shockingly, even the most critical patients are administered drugs 30-45 minutes after reaching the emergency ward — wasting crucial time during which a patient is grappling between life and death, said sources in the hospital.
The Indira Gandhi Critical Care unit of the PMCH, commonly called emergency ward, has four units — medical, surgical, orthopaedic and a wing for burn injuries. Everyday about 400-500 patients are registered in these units — all requiring urgent medical assistance.
“Almost 90 per cent of the patients admitted in the critical care require diagnoses like X-Ray and CT scan. However, the CT scan machine has been lying dysfunctional for the last one-and-a-half years and the X-Ray machine is also out of order for the last two months. Attendants of the patients have no other option but to take even the most critical patient outside the hospital for basic diagnosis,” said a junior doctor at the hospital who spoke under cover of anonymity.
He added that most of the patients were forced to go to diagnostic laboratories outside the hospital to get these tests done. “It is really pathetic that patients struggling for their lives have to be taken outside the hospital for these diagnoses. The X-Ray machine in the radiology department works for a few hours daily but hardly a handful reap benefit from it, as emergency patients often come at odd hours. Moreover, there is a huge queue of patients in the X-Ray room, with only a single machine working in the hospital. Also, there is no glucometer in the emergency to measure patients’ blood sugar level and the blood pressure apparatus attached to every bed does not work,” the doctor further said.
Patients’ woes do not end here. Of the 107 drugs that the hospital is supposed to provide free of cost, patients get 8-10 at the most. “Apart from 8-10 antibiotics, the hospital seldom has any other drug, including life-saving medication,” said another doctor of the hospital.
“If one counts the time, from the moment a patient is registered with the hospital till the time he is administered drug by the doctor, at least 30-45 minutes elapse. That often turns fatal in critical cases. And it is not that the patient is not attended by the doctor — there are about 65 junior and as many senior doctors in the critical care services — but it is because he has to get the tests done from outside and drugs bought from private chemists,” said another doctor who was attending upon a patient in the emergency ward.
Relatives of patients said cleanliness and hygiene at PMCH are a luxury considering the present condition of infrastructure and logistics in the hospital. “It is difficult to stay in the ward because of a strong stink all the time. Washrooms are filthy and floors are not washed properly. If a patient vomits on the floor, chances are that the sweeper will not clean it up for hours. If the patients’ kin ask a sweeper to clean up the mess, he would refuse outright. We are just poor people with little or no money and therefore, we can only hope that our patient survives,” said Purushottam Mahto, a resident of Gopalgunj who is looking after his ailing mother.
More than funds, believe many doctors, the management is responsible for the infrastructure and logistic problems at the hospital.
Deputy superintendent of the hospital Dr R.K. Singh, however, said the excessive number of patients puts a lot of pressure on the available resources. “We have limited resources and with that we have to serve so many people. However, we are trying our best to ensure quality services,” he said.