HYDERABAD: With at least 40 cases of respiratory failures recorded every day, the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit of Erragadda Chest Hospital has been acutely under-equipped for the past four years. The four-bed RICU with no ventilators is evidently not enough to cater to the patients of the entire State.
The only working equipment in the RICU is the centralised oxygen supply system. Several equipment in the outpatient department is defunct. Adding to the doctors’ administrative woes, the technical systems that handle the Arogyasri scheme crash every 10 to 15 days, leading to difficulty in enrolling patients under scheme. Dr Mahboob Khan, the superintendent of the centre, says, “We had spent `20 lakh from the hospital development fund to construct another ten-bed RICU ward.
The work was completed a year back. We are still waiting for the Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMSIDC) to provide us with the medical equipment so that we could start the RICU.”
“We immediately require an X-ray machine in the OP department. The ultrasound machine is not working. We do not even have a CT scan machine. The hospital, where 50 per cent of the patients come with acute tuberculosis, does not have a functioning CBNAAT machine to screen for the disease. There is an acute need for five to six ventilators,” laments a doctor, on the condition of anonymity.
He further adds, “Every day we send at least 3-4 patients to Gandhi Hospital. The machinery in the diagnostic department are defunct too, because of which investigations that can be acquired in a matter of hours are sent to external diagnostic centres.”