Patients share one bed at govt hospital

There is only one dengue ward at Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital for patients with chikungunya, dengue and malaria.  It has just has 12 beds and two patients are sharing one bed.

The rest of the patients are being accommodated in the medicine ward, where patients are given their drips. On average in recent days, the hospital has been getting about 120 chikungunya patients, 110 dengue patients and 70 suffering from malaria daily, according to medical superintendent Dr Amita Saxena.

“Dengue patients are rapidly being sent home as soon as their platelet count is normal. This way the space for more patients are being maintained,” said Nirmal Singh, who got his chikungunya-infected 73-year-old father.

People have to wait for half an hour and more even when the patient cannot stand on their feet, said Pinki, who brought her mother for admission on Wednesday. There were patients lying on top of each other she said.

Only those people are being given beds who are seemingly in critical condition, said Pinki.
But patients at Delhi government-run LBS hospital are not complaining.  They said they were being attended properly.

The only problem they seemed to express is with the toilet.  “There is only one toilet in the floor which is for all the patients. The toilet is in a deplorable condition. There is dirty water, black marks all over the walls and the stench is so strong, that no one should use it,” said Pinki. 

Most patients in the dengue ward were residents from Khichripur and Mayur Vihar, which are in LBS’ vicinity. The family members of patients complained that the drinking water provided by MCD for the past three months is not  “brown” in colour but
also stinks. “Our hands keep stinking after we wash it,” said Amit, resident of Mayur Vihar, phase 1.

“We called MCD many times and they said they are trying to take care of it,” said Singh from Mayur Vihar.

Dr Saxena said that we have heavy inflow of patients. According to a meeting held with L G Najeeb Jung and Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Wednesday, patients who cannot be accommodated could be sent to Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital, Tahirpur, but there has been no transfer initiated,” said Saxena.

RGSS has 600 beds which are vacant at the moment. Sunil Khatri, Medical Superintendent, RGSS hospital said, “We are only admitting those who need to be admitted. Rest are given medicines to take home.”

There have been seven to eight admission for chikungya, dengue and malaria in total in RGSS on Thursday.