It is Asia’s largest hospital for tuberculosis treatment. But over the past three months it has become a morgue for many patients, as doctors refuse to operate cases.
According to sources, nearly ten patients are dying almost every day at the 1,000-bed hospital, as not a single surgery has been conducted here in the past three months. Hospital officials will neither divulge any numbers on the deaths, nor acknowledge the medical crisis.
“Only one surgery was conducted at the start of the year, in January. Since then, the lack of an anaesthesia machine for almost a month and the refusal of doctors at major civic hospitals like Sion, Nair and KEM, to assist in operations, has led to surgeries being put off over the past three months,” said a senior doctor at the hospital.
The operation theatres at the Sewri TB hospital which were closed for six years, were reopened for surgeries after the drug-resistant TB scare last year. Since then, 43 patients were operated there, 12 of them drug-resistant cases that did not respond to the first line of treatment. Only one of these patients succumbed to his illness.
Suhas Katwate, who was operated on in November, describes himself as one of the lucky ones. “I was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2002 and suffered for ten years, until the specialists at the hospital gave me hope and operated on me,” said the 30-year-old resident of Jogeshwari. A portion of his lung that was infected was removed in the surgery.
“In a month’s time, the tests showed that I was free of tuberculosis bacteria. I was elated after the torture that I went through for ten years. It is really sad that surgeries are not taking place over the past three months. I hope that the problem is solved soon, as hundreds of lives are at stake,” Katwate said. Nearly 50 new cases are admitted at the Sewri TB hospital daily. And the mortality is appalling. “In a day, about 10 patients die at the hospital. At times, the number goes up to even 20. Operating on a patient can make him well. But with surgeries stalled the lives of many are in jeopardy,” a hospital official said.
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