Patna: Bihar's biggest state government-run hospital is severely ill-equipped to handle cardiac emergency cases, senior doctors at Patna Medical College and Hospital have warned in writing to the health department and other authorities.

Dr V.P. Sinha, associate professor at the PMCH cardiology department, in separate letters to the principal health secretary and to the Patna Medical College principal, has flagged the lack of manpower including doctors and missing coronary care unit (CCU), cardiac intensive care unit (CICU) or cardiac catheterisation lab.

The Telegraph had also highlighted such facts in its report, "Cardiac Care Gasps for breath", published on February 13 this year.

Sinha has pointed out that no beds have been allotted for cardiac patients in the PMCH emergency wing. And just 15 general beds have been allotted for cardiac patients.

"There has not been proper development of cardiology department of PMCH. We don't have cardiac cath lab and other required infrastructure and manpower. The post of doctors are lying vacant and so are the posts of ECG, ECHO and holter technician. We have three doctors having super-speciality degree of Doctorate of Medicine (DM) over here at PMCH. The Indira Gandhi Institute of Cardiology (IGIC) and other state-run hospitals don't have so many specialised doctors but still we are not being able to utilise them due to lack of facilities. Many times when we refer cardiac patients to the nearby IGIC, they die on their way there," Sinha said.

He said cardiologists did not even have separate chambers for providing consultation to patients. Sinha has written to the medical college principal that there is requirement of a 15-bed CCU, 10-bed intermediate CCU, 10-bed high dependency unit (HDU).

Another senior doctor said: "We don't have echocardiography machine with five probes (helps in detecting the cardiac output) or a holter machine (which records the heart's rhythms) or even a treadmill test machine."

PMCH superintendent Dr Rajiv Ranjan Prasad admitted there is a crisis but said the deficiencies would be addressed soon with the inauguration of a new super-speciality department wing later this month.

"With Centre and state funds, a new building that would house super-speciality departments including cardiology is going to be inaugurated by Union health minister J.P. Nadda. However, it would take two years to make the super-speciality departments properly functional."

He added: "We are also working on a proposal of starting MCh course in cardiology at PMCH using the IGIC's infrastructure and PMCH faculty members."

Principal secretary of health Sanjay Kumar was not available on his phone.