Phoolan, a resident of Gole Market, whose child is admitted to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, is compromising her health to maintain her personal hygiene.
She is scared to use the hospital toilet as her friends have warned her of contracting infections there. So the solution she has come up with is “to hold” till she is back home from the hospital.
The solution, though unhealthy, is the only way for Phoolan to avoid falling ill at a time when her child is hospitalised.
“We cannot afford the high-end private hospitals which offer patients clean, well-ventilated, dry toilets with proper disinfecting facilities. And with an ill child, I simply cannot afford to be down with any sort of infection,” she said.
The story is same at Kalawati Hospital where toilets lack basic facilities, including running water and soap and doors with latches.
“You will find unclean toilets, some with stray dogs in them, and most unusable during the night. The larger hospitals are marginally better. And toilets for the patients within the wards are definitely better than those outside,” said Chand, a driver whose child is admitted at the hospital.
Hospital authorities, however, claim that since government hospitals are “open” they can’t regulate who uses the facilities and how.
“Though we have guards and sweepers working round-the-clock, we are no match for a private set-up which takes in regulated crowd,” said a senior official at Safdarjung Hospital.
Drug addicts sitting outside the hospitals are another major cause for concern, said health officials. A Delhi health official said they have been getting complaints of littering (hospital areas and toilets) and of attendants facing harassment.
“Individual hospitals have to work to ensure safety and cleanliness in toilets. While private hospitals have shifted to organic cleansers for their complexes, the government hospitals have to stick to cost-efficient methods to cater to the masses. We can still say that we maintain very good hygiene standards and are constantly improving,” said a senior official at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.
