While it is a common scene to see patients' relatives lounging in the corridors of public hospitals, it is appalling that patients with fractured arms and legs are themselves lying in the verandah outside the orthopaedic ward, as the hospital reels under a dearth of beds. On Wednesday, dna reported that Swapnil Patwa, 25, who had suffered multiple fractures died outside the male orthopaedic ward number 30 of the Sion hospital, where he was abandoned at the dead of the night by ward boys.
Patients lying in corridors a common sight
On Thursday, three more patients were found to be lying in the corridors of orthopaedic ward of the hospital, bereft of a fan or a proper bed and in an injured state.
Thirty five-year-old Laxman Rathod cringes in pain and heat in the corridor. Rathod's both legs are severed. He begs for a living and a month ago he fell and slipped inside a train which cost him his left limb. After being admitted to the ward for a week, Rathod was shifted outside in the corridor. The doctors cited shortage of beds as a reason to shunt him out of the ward. For over twenty days now, he is languishing in the corridor. "Sixteen years ago, I had lost my right limb when a tractor ran over me. After losing the second leg, I have been in a miserable state. They threw me out of the ward. I stay in the corridors now. There is not even a fan here," Laxman told dna. Besides Laxman, Bunty Parmar, 24, sleeps on a coir mattress laid out on the floor. Bunty's left leg was amputated on August 30 after he fell out of a train. "I came to visit my brother from Agra and since the accident I have been lying in the corridors of the hospital," rued Bunty.
Are patients given an option of paying beds?
No. The male orthopaedic ward has seventy three beds in all including thirteen beds that can be paid for. Even though Bunty could afford to pay Rs 100 a day for a bed, he said that none of the nurses or doctors had informed him of that option. Most of the thirteen paying beds were empty, but the sixty free beds in the ward were full.
Are there enough doctors to tend to swelling number of patients?
No. Doctors complain that while the number of patients in Sion Hospital have multiplied manifold, the number of staff and beds have not increased. The orthopaedic department sees 1.5 lakh patients in the Outpatient Department and 3,500 admissions every year. Only twenty-five resident doctors are available to tend to them. A senior doctor, on the condition of anonymity, said that the department was grossly short-staffed. "There are four orthopaedic units, but only two professors, when each unit should have a head professor. Further there are only two associate professors and three lecturers, which is less as compared to number of patients this hospital attracts.
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