The unprecedented security arrangements at the out-patient block of Osmania General Hospital due to the presence of Kadapa MP Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy have robbed patients of access to the OP block.
The OP block is the nerve centre of the hospital as all emergencies are shifted there and it is here that admissions are also made.
On Friday, gun-toting men of the Border Security Force and the local police fortified the block. A barbed wire was also thrown around and the entrance barricaded. The barricades were removed whenever an ambulance arrived with a siren or exited.
Police allowed patients entry only if they were convinced that they had an ailment. There was no question of permitting more than one or two attendants. Even after the police gave the clearance, the private security man at the gate had his own posers at the visitors.
The usually crowded block wore a deserted look in the corridors and the courtyard. The strict restrictions left the patients and attendants red-faced.
A family could not even get a vehicle to shift the body of their dead kin. Many patients left in these circumstances but some who were in dire need literally pleaded police officers with folded hands to gain entry. Even the staff and doctors were thoroughly checked.
Hospital authorities were learnt to have taken up with the Chanchalguda Jail Superintendent shifting of Jagan to NIMS in view of the patients’ plight. of the patients.
