JOIN USThis hospital is in need of intensive care
The Government Communicable Diseases Hospital at Kolar Gold Fields sure needs some intensive care.
The Hospital, which has been ailing from lack of staff and maintenance, requires some proper attention and treatment.
The Hospital was established with the sole purpose of providing treatment to the persons affected by communicable diseases. In order to maintain higher levels of hygiene and cleanliness and ensuring caution and care to those patients, a separate building was established.
Change in role
It is an irony of sorts to note that today it is the hospital that needs some care and not the patients. For the patients seldom visit the hospital, going by the notoriety it has achieved.
Without adequate staff to run the show, works get piled up in the hospital. The only available staff are made to work overtime, while, the patients have, of late, refrained from visiting the hospital. The beds are vacant most of the time and only the out-patient department seems to work in the few hours of morning.
While, the in-patient department hardly functions, with no staff to attend, nor patients to count. Most of them wonder that when the Hospital had stopped functioning, what was the point in keeping it ‘alive.’
The very existence of the hospital is being questioned.
Why there is a need to have a separate hospital for communicable diseases, when its
purpose has not been achieved, a few question.
Deserted look
In the morning hours, only a nurse and a couple of “D” grade employees are seen running around. And during nights, neither the patients are seen nor the staff are visible.
The Hospital wears a deserted look, sending chills down the spines of the visitors, who rush there in the hope of getting some medical relief. They are sure to faint in shock going by the way the Hospital functions.
“Empty beds and deserted corridors are enough to demoralise patients. There are no duty doctors appointed nor are there nurses, who can take care of patients in the doctor’s absence. The in-patients are left to fend for themselves. I wonder how it will be during emergencies,” says a Mescom official who was admitted to the Hospital, recently.
Last month, a gastroenteritis patient required immediate medical attention. When he arrived at the Hospital to get admitted, the nurse of duty refused to get him admitted.
Internal problems
As if these problems were not sufficient, an incident of physical abuse has also left the Hospital’s image dented. It was reported that the family members of a nurse had allegedly abused a ward boy physically.
Expressing his helplessness, District Surgeon Dr Shivram admitted that the staff crunch in the Hospital had lead to several problems. The Hospital was not able to do justice to the patients. The higher officials had already been appealed several times in this regard, he added.
Action needed
The people feel the district health officer and the district vigilance officer should also do something in this regard.
They should take up the matter seriously and try to give a new lease of life to the Hospital and try to resuscitate the sinking institution.