AIDS patient Suresh Singh (name changed), 32, got the shock of his life last Monday when a doctor of the orthopaedic department of Patna Medical College and Hospital denied to perform a surgery on his leg.
Gyan Prakash, another AIDS patient and president of Bihar Network for People Living with HIV AIDS, faced a similar denial by the same department a year ago.
The two are among several cases projecting the state’s insensitivity towards persons suffering from infectious diseases, offering absolutely no guarantee for their lives.
Narrating the state of affairs at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), the state’s premier health hub, Gyan said: “The doctor concerned told me that he could not perform surgery on me because there was no separate operation theatre for patients with infectious disease at PMCH.”
Suresh said: “The doctor told me that he could not operate on me because he did not want to engage the operation theatre (OT) for 24 hours thereafter, inconveniencing other patients.”
Arjun Singh, head of the orthopaedic department at PMCH, admitted to The Telegraph that Suresh was denied a surgery. “There should be a separate OT for patients with infectious diseases because of the high risk involved. If the state government does not provide us with a separate OT, what can we do? We cannot invite trouble by operating on an AIDS patient in a normal OT. We know that everything in the OT needs to be sterilised at 1200ºC. But the entire fumigation process takes 24 hours before the OT can be reused. The list of patients in need of surgery is usually long. We cannot keep the OT idle for so long,” explained Singh.
Lack of separate dialysis machines and operation theatres at government hospital for patients with infectious diseases like HIV and Hepatitis B is a grim reality.
Such patients are mostly denied surgery and in some cases, they are given dates weeks later. Doctors of most state-run hospitals don’t find it sensible to make other patients wait for surgeries of people with infectious diseases. Hence, such patients are denied surgery or given dates late to ensure that other operations don’t get delayed.
A doctor of PMCH’s surgery department said: “The prospect of keeping the OT idle for 24 hours for sterilisation forces me to refuse operating on patients with infectious diseases. I operated on AIDS patients only twice.” Another doctor at Nalanda Medical College and Hospital cited the same reason for denying operating on AIDS and Hepatitis B patients.
A source said such patients are even denied dialysis because of lack of separate machines. Gopal Prasad, a doctor of the nephrology department of PMCH, said: “Though we have separate dialysis machines for Hepatitis B patients, we do not have one exclusively for AIDS patients.”
But Yashwant Singh, head of nephrology department of PMCH, brushed aside the allegation and even Prasad’s claim. Asked how many AIDS patients had undergone dialysis so far, he said: “No dialysis has been performed on AIDS patient. But we are contemplating to start doing that.”
NMCH deputy superintendent Santosh Kumar admitted the lack of a separate OT for patients of infectious diseases but said it had not prevented them to operate on such patients.
“We use the OT after 24 hours of sterilisation,” he said, adding: “Rarely HIV or Hepatitis B patients needing surgeries come to our hospital.”
medical safety
Syringes and needles are used once only and disposed of into special containers
Reusable instruments are cleaned and sterilised after every use
Many items are disposed of after single use
Healthcare workers wear protective attire including gowns, gloves and
eyewear when carrying out procedures involving blood and body fluids
Spilt blood and body fluids are cleaned up according to strict procedures
Laundry is cleaned according to strict infection control procedures
