The Delhi Health Department may blacklist PSE Installations – the company in-charge of maintenance and providing manpower at the Sushruta Trauma Centre where four patients died due to lack of oxygen on Tuesday. Delhi Health Minister Dr. A. K. Walia has already directed all the hospitals in the Capital to check and immediately report in case they areusing the services of this private company in their oxygen plant.
Dr. Walia said: “The Sushruta Trauma Centre was recently brought under the Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Hospital after it faced acute staff shortage and wasn’t able to cope up with the patient load that it was getting every day, not just from Delhi but also from the neighbouring States. But this also did not yield the desired results. We are now planning to bring trauma centres in close proximity to large Delhi Government Hospitals.”
The Sushruta Trauma Centre, which is Delhi Government’s flagship centre offering super-speciality facilities for accident victims, has been struggling with the shortage of neurologists, anaesthetists and radiologists.
Stating that the Delhi Government is now planning to add 65 additional emergency beds in all its large hospitals and provide adequate ventilator facilities to take on the patient load, the Health Minister said: “At the Sushruta Trauma Centre despite our best efforts there has been staff shortage and the MRI facility and digital X-ray machine are not being used for patient care. We will now ensure that the oxygen supply facility at the Trauma Centre is given on contract to a responsible agency and there is a serious move to blacklist this company which allowed an untrained employee to operate the system and that too at less than optimal capacity.”
Also fixing the blame on the medical staff for not keeping a strict vigil on this life-saving support system, the Health Minister said: “The Trauma Centre is currently under Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Hospital and we expect that medical personnel in-charge stay alert about the fitness of the equipment and ensure that patients benefit from the facilities. In this case the private company had not provided adequate staff and was at fault while running the system. Also the medical staff at the Centre and Lok Nayak Hospital were not alert about this persistent problem.”
