Mir Farhat
SRINAGAR, Jan 30: Kashmir’s only infant-care hospital, GB Pant, is struggling to recover from the last year’s ravaging floods as its essential machinery, ground floor and sanitation system are still defunct, with its administrators lax to restore it from the disorder.
The hospital that has received about 38,000 infant patients post floods has no X-Ray plant installed and essential laboratory equipment like Echo Cardiogram, blood bank and other lab equipment are yet to be made functional.
Shockingly, the Oxygen plant considered to be vital for survival of sick infants has also not been installed.
While it received no support from Centre and the State, some philanthropists have donated X-Ray machine, Echo Cardiogram and some beds to the hospital.
Manned by the retired doctor, Muneer Masoodi, appointed by the former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah after hundreds of infant deaths in 2012 to evade flogging of his Government, the hospital is in complete disarray.
When asked about his failure to restore the hospital, Dr Masoodi said they have restored about 80 percent of it post floods.
In its report sent to the Principal GMC Dr Rafiq Pampori, the Medical Superintendent has mentioned that 80 percent of the laboratory equipment like Hematology and Microbiology have been made functional and some are in pipeline.
It mentions that 50 percent blood bank equipments are working; in Radiology section, colour Doppler has been installed in a makeshift ward and Computerised Radiology has been reordered. However, 200 M A X-Ray “is waiting for installation”, and the Echo Cardiogram and CT machine are yet to be brought to the hospital. “We have done what was in our capacity,” the MS said.
Anxious parents, who are waiting to get the ill babies treated in wards, complain that the hospital is lacking sanitation. Dirty corridors, wards, and filthy and overflowing washrooms is what the attendants have to see every day in the hospital. The hospital grapples with staff shortage, both paramedic and doctors.
An attendant in Ward 10 said that one nurse has to look after 28 beds. “In such crises, about 50 percent of the senior consultants are on winter vacation, leaving the whole hospital to the mercy of juniors”, he said.
“We cannot run such a hospital on our own. In absence of the consultants, we have much workload which ultimately affects the patients as we cannot handle such a rush,” a junior doctor said.
The hospital’s sewage treatment plant is defunct after floods. The overflowing filth from its bathrooms has made the hospital and its premises stink. The sewage has occupied its ground floor and the pathways around the hospital.
Masoodi said that it is not in his control to maintain the physical work of the hospital. “My role is only to manage the hospital within inside. All the physical work like restoration of its infrastructure and cleanliness is the baby of Hospital Maintenance division like R&B, PDD and BB Cantonment,” he said, adding that Cantonment is the main hurdle in maintaining its sanitation.
The hospital has no isolation ward for babies who are suffering from communicable diseases, no separate ward for infants suffering from gastroenteritis and no lab for patients who are brought to the OPD.
A doctor, who is working in the hospital, said if the patients suffering from communicable diseases are kept with other babies “it can prove fatal as the infection is likely to get transmitted to other babies in the same ward”.
Wishing anonymity, he said that the OPD is manned by House Surgeons, and doctors who are doing their PGs in Pediatrics after 3 pm as consultants call their day off. The OPD also does not have an investigation lab and parents of the ill infants are forced to get the tests done in private labs.
“House Surgeons are simple MBBS doctors, and PGs cannot check patients in the OPD as they are no trained to handle such patients who are suffering from diseases. They cannot judge which patient needs admission and which does not. Most often infant patients who do not need to be admitted are admitted and those which need are send off,” he said, adding in such cases it could prove fatal for the ill infants.
However, the MS dismissed the charge, saying that “it is all lie. Doctors are in the OPD till 8 in the evening.” On not having investigation lab in the OPD, Dr Masoodi said it is a Government policy. “No GMC associated hospital has an investigation lab in the OPD,” he said.
Owing to the absence of CT and Echo machines in the hospital, worried parents of the sick infants said that they have to go to SKIMS for CT and Echo, which costs so much time that the babies’ condition worsens till it is done.
The pace of the restoration work of the ground floor is going at very slow pace which the MS has also pointed out in the report.
R&B which is tasked to do it said that it will take them 15 days to complete it. But on the ground it appears that it will take two months as only two men are carrying out the work in the vast floor that has suffered much damage in the floods.
The report said that OPD, newly earmarked Blood Bank, Echo-Cardiography room, immunization sections, entire laboratory, Casualty are yet to be restored and the work is going at snail’s pace.
The MS has requested the Principal GMC to take up the slower pace of work matter with the Chief Engineer, PWD (R&B).
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