Even doctors agree health infrastructure is inadequate.

On Wednesday morning, the father of an AIIMS-Patna doctor had to be rushed to several hospitals, as he suffered subarachnoid haemorrhage, which needed immediate treatment at a multi-speciality facility. None of the hospitals - not even government-run Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) - offers such a service in crisis.

The man, in his late-50s, was on his way to a temple on Nala Road when he suffered subarachnoid haemorrhage, which is an uncommon brain stroke in which patient can die. Elderly people with history of chronic kidney disease, diabetes among other conditions might experience subarachnoid haemorrhage.

AIIMS sources said they had to visit three different health facilities to get the right treatment for him. While they found CT scan facility at one health hub, they found MRI facility in another facility. Also, coiling, a specialised treatment to stop bleeding in the brain, in another health facility. 

A doctor of the AIIMS surgery department, preferring anonymity said: "We were shocked to find that no hospital had all the facilities together to treat such a serious patient. We all became tensed when we got to know that coiling was not available at the second hospital. Finally, we decided to take him to another hospital. Fortunately, we discovered that in this particular case, coiling was not required and so he was kept in the second hospital. This episode made us realise that people in the state are not safe in these types of serious cases."

The sources said that the AIIMS doctors did not even think once to take the patient to any government health facilities - either the PMCH or Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences as none of them was equipped with the necessary facilities. "We checked that none of the government health facilities has an MRI machine or coiling treatment facility," said the AIIMS doctor.

The condition of the patient is said to be critical.

Girish Kumar Sharan, a doctor in the PMCH neurosurgery department, admitted that cases of subarachnoid haemorrhage (particularly in which coiling is required) were not entertained by the hospital because of facilities. "At PMCH, neither MRI nor coiling treatment is available. When such serious cases come to us, we are forced to refer," said Sharan.

Anup Kumar, head, orthopaedics department, AIIMS Patna, said most of the AIIMS doctors were scared about their own health issues. "All of us are scared as to what will happen in case any one of us meets with an accident. There is no facility at AIIMS-Patna to treat emergency patients while the state-run and private hospitals are also not equipped to handle such cases."

The sources added that the AIIMS-Patna doctors had earlier shot off a letter to former health joint secretary Sandeep Naik in which they had highlighted their concerns in the absence of AIIMS's fully functional hospital and poor condition of state-run and private hospitals in the city.