Mir Farhat
Srinagar, Jan 23: In Srinagar’s Chest Disease Hospital, a 70-year-old patient, battling acute chest disease, is keeping himself warm with a Kangri held beneath a green blanket.
It is afternoon and the hospital has switched off its central heating system even when it is most needed by patients admitted for their serious chest diseases.
Not only him, but most of the patients in the five wards of the hospital are finding it tough to bear the freezing winter season, when temperature plummets to sub zero.
“It is very cold in the ward. My son has brought this Kangri from home for me. I am admitted here for the last five days but I didn’t feel the warmth from the heating system which is installed in the hospital,” the patient said.
Being one of the oldest hospitals in the State, it has long ago fitted a central heating system in its wards and corridors. But the deficit fuel supply by the Government forces its administrators to shut it for most of the day.
Besides Kangris, some of the attendants have brought water bottles from home for their patients. But due to turning off the heating system the hospital does not have hot water in its water supply system.
A doctor working in the hospital said: “Patients cannot be expected to shiver in their beds when they are recovering from operations.”
The Chest Diseases (CD) receives 48,000 liters of fuel less than it needs.
Medical Superintendent of the hospital Dr Riyaz Ahmad Rangrez told Excelsior that due to the shortfall in fuel supply they have to switch off the central heating system.
“We have to run the hospital within the budget. We require 1, 32000 litres of fuel for winter season, but we are supplied only 84, 000 litres. Due to this deficit, we cannot run the heating system throughout the day. The central heating system operates between 5 pm to 12 am to keep the hospital wards warm”, he said, adding in future the hospital will face more difficulty in keeping the wards warm.
An official in the Government Medical College (GMC) said all its associated hospitals are running short of funds to run the central heating facilities. Paucity of the funds has forced the hospitals to purchase the fuel on debt.
The official said they have raised the issue with the top Government officials. “Until the Government provides required funds, the patients will keep feeling cold,” he said.
“The sanitary staff routinely cleans the hospital. What more can we do. This is not Washington (US). This is a poor state. We have to live like this,” he replied when asked that the administration has not maintained the hygiene of the hospital when most sick patients with acute chest diseases are admitted in its wards.
Being located on a hillock, the hospital has the strangest location, which poses a challenge to the patients suffering from respiratory disorders.
The location of the hospital is also loathed by the doctors themselves. “The geography of the hospital is the biggest flaw,” says Dr Khursheed Ahmed, Assistant Professor at the hospital. “The condition of a patient does not remain better when he walks the steep concrete stairs and ramp.”
Its wards are spread on a terraced land, and the wards are connected by five concrete stairs.
Built in 1896 by some British philanthropists, the hospital would be used as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients.
The Superintendent said there was no cure then for tuberculosis and the idea behind the hospital being built on a hillock was to isolate patients and provide them a serene and hygienic atmosphere to recover.
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