Shortage of medical kits plagues Telangana hospitals

There have been reports in the past six months that tertiary hospitals in Hyderabad and districts are struggling due to shortage of vital medical kits. "I had to purchase Hepatitis B and C kits from outside during admission", said a patient.

It was close to midnight when Ramakrishna brought his nephew Teja, who had received critical injuries in a road accident, from Parkal, Warangal to the emergency wing of Osmania General Hospital (OGH). The attending doctors started the process of admission but stumped Ramakrishna by asking him to purchase medical kits to conduct tests.

“They asked me to purchase kits to test for HIV, Hepatitis B and C. It was 11.30 p.m. and I had to run from pillar to post to get hold of the kits. Fortunately, we had enough money with us and managed to procure in the nick of time. Why can’t the authorities ensure a steady supply of such vital kits?” asks Ramakrishna.

Ramakrishna’s case is not a random one. Most of the State-run hospitals in Hyderabad do suffer from chronic shortage of vital medical kits for mandatory testing of HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. Once the stocks of such medical kits are finished, it takes a long time to get them replenished. As a result, while admitting patients, doctors tend to prescribe such kits and ask relatives of patients to buy.

There have been reports in the past six months that tertiary hospitals in Hyderabad and districts are struggling due to shortage of vital medical kits. “I had to purchase Hepatitis B and C kits from outside during admission. The emergency doctors said that they had run out of the regular stock. Ironically enough, the private drug store on the hospital premises had enough kits in its stock,” recalls Prakash, whose injured son was admitted to the casualty wing of Gandhi Hospital.

Erratic supply

Instances of shortage of HIV kits too have been reported. “We have come across complaints about shortage of HIV testing kits. On occasions, the supply is erratic. The stocks do get replenished but quickly go out of stock and it takes days to get them restocked,” says Krishna of Suraksha Society, who works with HIV patients in Hyderabad.

The standard operating procedure for stocking such diagnostic kits is that everyday by afternoon the hospital’s duty medical officer, based on the average flow of patients, sets aside a set number of medical kits at the emergency. However, when the patient inflow is more, doctors are left with little option but to prescribe.

While the bed strength of Gandhi is 1,100, the patient inflow hovers at around 2,000 per day. Same is the case in OGH, where sanctioned beds are 1,400 but the inflow is more than 2,000. “We do our best to stock up on such medical kits in emergency wings. But, when it is an emergency and there is a high patient inflow, there could be instances when doctors might have prescribed,” says Gandhi Hospital superintendent Dr. G. Venkateswarlu.