Emergency operations and other cases were not taken post 7 pm on Thursday.
Rekha, 31, suffering because of pain had been waiting since Thursday evening for her hernia surgery at the Gastroenterology ward of the Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital, but she was made to wait another 12 hours due to the non-availability of water. While Rekha was operated later in the day on Friday, many other patients had to move to other hospitals due to dysfunctional Emergency OT between Thursday evening and Friday noon.
The East Delhi area is facing water supply issues for the last few days, but on Thursday evening, a burst water pipe led to almost no water supply in most parts of the Delhi govt's largest tertiary care hospital in East Delhi. Emergency operations and other cases were not taken post 7 pm on Thursday as the water pipe was being repaired.
"The entire hospital was affected as no water meant no cleaning of surgical instruments. Even the toilets had no water. Most of the doctors had to use bottled water to wash hands and check the patients. We had to cancel/delay the morning operations as a precautionary measure," revealed a senior doctor on the condition of anonymity.
"We know the last minute changes are difficult for the patients, and thus apologized for the delay/postponement," added the doctor.
While the water pipe was repaired early in the morning of Friday, the surgeries still could not be continued until late noon as all the surgical instruments had to be cleaned. The hospital with a daily footfall of over 8,000 patients in its Out-Patient Department conducts over 100 major and minor surgeries. All of these were affected due to the water shortage.
"From our end, there has been no shortage in water supply in the area and thus it seems like an internal problem of the hospital. No cleaning leads to pipe blockade. The wear and tear of these pipes, however, should be checked by the hospital every few months.," said Dinesh Mohania, Vice-Chairman, Delhi Jal Board.
DNA tried to reach the medical director of the hospital, but he was unavailable for comments.
WATER CRISIS
- The residents of South Delhi’s marketplace, South Extension Phase II have been facing acute water shortage for over six months now. However, they alleged that last ten days have been a nightmare. They are relying on water tankers, packaged bottles
- “Senior citizens have suffered the most in the last ten days, we are left us with no option but to buy water. All this is happening because of lack of management from the Delhi Jal Board,” said SK Mittal, president, RWA, South Extension
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