General Hospital lacks basic facilities

However, the facilities provided at the General Hospital have remained the same. The facilities have not been increased in proportion to the number of beds.

And to make matters worse, the only ward in the General Hospital is brimming with patients. In the last few days, there has been an increase in the number of patients suffering from various contagious diseases in the entire taluk. With increase in the number of patients visiting the General Hospital, two patients are being treated on a single bed, at a time.

In the last one week, almost every day more than 350 patients are visiting the hospital. And more than a hundred patients are being admitted as in-patients. And most of them are suffering with symptoms of extreme fever, head ache, vomiting, dysentery and body ache.

The entire General Hospital has only one ward to boast of. And this ward has only 20 beds. And there is only one nurse for the entire ward. While, there are only two or three doctors to take care of about a hundred patients. And there are only three nurses to take care of the remaining patients in the hospital. Even among these three nurses, one is stationed in the vaccination centre, another in the maternity ward and the third nurse is supposed to attend to the rest of the hospital duties.

Tough time

These nurses are having a tough time in handling a large number of patients who are getting admitted everyday. And they will have to handle the relatives attending to the patients also. And the remaining are two Class ‘D’ employees, among whom one works in the morning and the other in the night.

Doctors who are stationed in the Primary Health Centres in the rural areas are supposed to reside in their respective places of service. Infact, according to hospital sources, the doctors have produced fake documents stating that they resided in the villages and sought an additional salary of Rs 3,000. However, none of them resided in the villages, nor did they visit the hospital even during day time. The higher officials had not bothered to take any action in this regard.

The Government has however washed its hands of the matter, by upgrading the hospital to 100 beds from 20 beds. That apart, the patients do not have any other facility here.
The patients allege that the elected representatives should try to ensure that the hospital is also provided with additional facilities for the benefit of the patients who facing a lot of hardships without proper treatment.