Indoor ambulance service and (below) emergency and casualty unit and neurosurgery department at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, May 18: Patients are facing problems at SCB Medical College and Hospital owing to the inordinate delay in shifting to various wards from the emergency and trauma care centre.

Hospital officials took over four hours to shift 92-year-old Laxmidhar Jena to the neurosurgery department from the casualty unit yesterday.

The delay in admission to the neurosurgery department caused a lot of inconvenience to Laxmidhar’s family and they had to move from pillar to post seeking assistance for the admission.

Laxmidhar was brought to the hospital after a clot in his brain was diagnosed by the doctors at a city-based private nursing home a couple of weeks ago when he had started to develop partial paralysis symptoms.

“We reached SCB around 1.15pm and after initial check-up, we had to wait till 5.30pm at the casualty department because no step was taken to shift my father to the neurosurgery department,” said Prakash Jena, the patient’s son.

Prakash said that the neurologist doctor had advised a surgery and suggested that Laxmidhar be admitted to the department.

However, other staff at the casualty department did not take any steps to do this.

“It is unfortunate that patients have to wait for several hours because there is no proper mechanism for proper co-ordination between various departments at the hospital for immediate admission and shifting of critical patients,” said Ashok Ray, another attendant.

A battery-operated ambulance service was launched at the hospital to ferry patients from one department to another on the hospital campus in 2011. However, patients have to wait because there are only two indoor of these ambulances.

Taking advantage of the situation, touts are luring patients away from SCB to various private nursing homes.

“My wife was earlier admitted to the orthopedics department and we had to wait for a week at SCB for a surgery. Eventually, we had to shift her to a private nursing home and she was discharged in a couple of days after the surgery last month,” said Pavitra Behera, a resident of Pithapur.

Hospital superintendent P.K. Rath admitted the problem and said that steps would be taken to resolve such issues at the hospital.

“Earlier, similar delay in shifting and admission was also reported in the outpatient department. This has now been resolved. We will soon take appropriate steps to ensure that the delay in shifting critically ill patients from casualty is checked,” said Rath.

Rath said that instruction has already been given to ensure that the indoor ambulance service was mainly engaged to shift critical patients from casualty to various other wards at the hospital.