Emergency services restored at Gandhi Hospital

Senior doctors chip in; huge rush at out-patient department

Medical services at emergency and critical care wards of various departments at Gandhi Hospital were restored on Monday, with senior doctors pitching in to make up for the shortage of manpower due to the junior doctors' strike.

However, patients continued to complain about irritants like callous attitude of hospital staff and lack of services in some departments that continued to have less manpower.

The outpatient departments functioned fully today. So was the vital casualty ward at Gandhi Hospital, which now had two doctors and adequate number of nurses and paramedical staff. In fact, hospital doctors said that they had lined up patients to undergo surgeries in the coming few days.

Long wait for patients

The outpatient wing at Gandhi and Osmania General Hospitals received large number of patients and all the departments in the outpatient wing functioned normally. “We are waiting for our turn for the past two hours. The rush is huge and it is taking a lot of time despite two doctors managing the outpatients,” said Khairunnisa Begum, at female general surgery ward.

“Yesterday we performed 15 surgeries and admitted close to 80 patients in our emergency wards. As many as 34 doctors from non-emergency departments, 12 doctors from the teaching side and another 32 doctors from Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhan Parishad have been roped-in. We will operate all medical services and I request public to have patience and utilise the services properly. In the last 24 hours, there were seven deaths, but none of them were related to the strike,” Superintendant, Gandhi Hospital, Shaikh Mahmood, said.

Situation near normal

The situation was almost near normal at Osmania General Hospital (OGH), as the outpatient wing received close to 1,000 patients. The hospital authorities asserted that casualty wing of the hospital also functioned normally. “It remains to be seen for how many days the senior doctors will be able to manage the situation. We can only hope that the issues are resolved quickly before the toll of extra work starts reflecting on medical services,” doctors at OGH maintained.

Meanwhile, the junior doctors on Monday organised a meeting with representatives of a host of student organisations, cutting across political affiliations, to garner support. The junior doctors claimed that their demands were just and requested the student organisations to lend them a helping hand.