Waterlogging in front of the TBDC Hospital in Patna City on Sunday. Picture by Sachin

A portion of the Nalanda Medical College and Hospital has gone under water, triggering water-borne disease scare.

Around one foot water has accumulated in the infectious diseases wing of the hospital, landing patients and their attendants in trouble. Even the office of the hospital superintendent is waterlogged.

Mayor Afzal Imam claimed that Patna Municipal Corporation was continuously monitoring the situation. He said water had been receding the area where the hospital was situated.

The mayor failed to impress upon the patients and their attendants, though. Prashant Kumar (41), an attendant of a patient admitted in the infectious diseases ward of the hospital, said: “The health hub doesn’t have a proper drainage system to avert waterlogging. Rain and drain water have accumulated in the infectious diseases ward.”

Dr A.K. Thakur, the head of the paediatrics department of Nalanda Medical College and Hospital, said: “Every time there is continuous rainfall, the infectious diseases ward and the superintendent’s office are flooded because they are in a low-lying area. There should have been some arrangements from the Patna Municipal Corporation to deal with the situation. If a hospital is flooded, the treatment of patients gets hampered. Also, the patients might contract waterborne-diseases. The condition of the patients admitted in the infectious diseases ward can worsen if they come in direct contact with the dirty water accumulated in their ward.”

The hospital superintendent, Dr Santosh Kumar, claimed that different parts of NMCH were waterlogged for the first time in 10 years.

Besides NMCH, healthcare institutions at the Agamkuan area in Patna City were facing waterlogging problem. TBDC Hospital, Combined Food and Drug Testing Laboratory and Government Pharmacy Institute have been partially flooded.

Surplus rain

The city recorded 55 per cent rise in monsoon rainfall over the past nine days.

Forty-five per cent rainfall deficiency was observed on August 8. On Sunday, the rain tally in the city was 10 per cent surplus.

The local Met office has forecast light to moderate rainfall across the state, including Patna, till Wednesday (August 20), followed by another spell of active monsoon phase. “Except for isolated heavy rainfall in some parts of eastern Bihar on August 19, the rest of the state is expected to receive light to moderate rainfall till August 20. A low-pressure area, expected to form over the Bay of Bengal, could trigger another phase of active monsoon in the region. Thus, we expect heavy rainfall in most parts of the state for a couple of days from August 21,” said Ashish Sen, director, Patna Meteorological Centre.