Kidwai Hospital rubbishes reports of them telling cancer patients to vacate

Kidwai Hospital, on Thursday, lashed out at a report alleging that it was turning out children suffering from cancer to make way for COVID-19 patients.

On Wednesday, the social justice group Naavu Bharateeyaru had released a report declaring the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown was severely impacting public health services. The report claimed that cancer patients requiring “chemotherapy and other-long term-care have shockingly been asked to vacate the Kidwai Memorial Hospital.”

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The report added that the authors of the paper had been given information about nine children, aged five to nine, who had been turned out of the hospital. “They are from East India and do not have any place to stay in Bengaluru or travel back to their homes. The state has not taken any responsibility to find alternate accommodation for them,” the report stated.

Dr C Ramachandra, the Director of Kidwai lambasted the reports as fake. “If the report is true, that would make us truly inhumane practitioners of medicine. Are we so heartless to turn out children under care?” he said.

“Currently, we have 40 patients and about 60 attenders in the Dharmashala and in the entirety of our institute, there are about 150 patients still under care. Our patient occupancy nevertheless is still only at 15%. One entire section of the Dharmashala is lying empty. Where is the question of turning outpatients, especially children?” he added.

COVID-19 ward

The director said, however, that he had been given instructions by state health officials to set aside 12 beds for COVID-19 patients, with another eight beds being prepared. The hospital said it has eight ventilators on-hand, but is expected to take receipt of another 17 from Bharat Petroleum and Infosys.

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“In addition, we have the provision of converting 150 beds into a COVID-19 ward for the worst-case scenario - if the number of patients reaches the scale of Italy. However, these are all extra measures that the hospital has taken. There is no question of evicting cancer patients,” Dr Ramachandra said.

Kidwai said it had, however, informed patients under elective care to come back after the lockdown ends, but added that emergency services are open 24x7.

The Naavu Bharateeyaru report also stated that patients requiring dialysis, chemotherapy and blood transfusions have largely failed to secure treatment owing to the closure of public transport systems and police restrictions on travel.