VIJAYAWADA: On an average, at least one in 20 children visiting the old Government General Hospital (GGH) is sent to Guntur General Hospital every day due to the lack of super speciality services. The 90-year-old hospital doesn’t have a single paediatric surgeon, forcing general surgeons to tend to patients during emergencies.
The 400-bed hospital which accepts only paediatric and gynaecology cases houses sophisticated medical equipment, but lacks specialist doctors and staffers.If a child needs to be operated upon urgently, general surgeons take up the case or the patient is referred to another hospital. Doctors TNIE spoke to said they found it hard to operate on infants and children as they usually work with adults. “Our hands shake while we operate on children. We usually refuse to operate when the paediatric wing asks us to tend to minor patients, but there are times when saying no is just not an option,” a chief general surgeon said.
Though Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu promised to start super speciality services at the old GGH, little has been done so far.According to the MCI guidelines, the nurse to patient ratio should be 1:5, in the case of infants there should be at least one nurse for every three patients (most private children’s hospitals maintain a 1:2 ratio). At the GGH, the ratio is a startling 1:20. “The shortage of nurses is huge in government hospitals. The management is clearly not bothered about making appointments or filling vacancies. The work here is so hectic that the few nurses we have tend to look for work elsewhere,” B Vijaya Kumari, a nurse explained.
Of the three paediatric wards in the GGH, one is dedicated to newborns. Even in critical care units, where around 30 babies are treated on an average, there are just three nurses available in every shift. During the monsoon, as many as 50 infants are accommodated in the wards.“Everyone thinks three nurses and two doctors are sufficient for a ward of 30 infants, but it is unmanageable and risky,” Dr Y Shailendhra, duty medical officer at the paediatric ward, said.
“If a child gets complications, a duty doctor and nurse have to attend to it simultaneously. It takes almost two hours for an infant to be normalised and in those two hours, all cases will be put on the wait list. What if two babies turn critical? What about the rest of the patients then?” the doctor asked.
“We have to monitor infants round the clock as there is no way they can communicate how they feel. We don’t want new posts to be created, at least fill vacancies,” Dr Shailendhra demanded.
The hospital also lacks basic amenities. Mothers often have no choice but to sit down while feeding children.It is not an uncommon sight to see new mothers queuing outside doctors’ rooms waiting for their turn baby in hand.
Follow-up cases are treated separately and almost 70 patients are examined by a single doctor every day.
“The waiting period will always be over 30-40 minutes. At times it can be over an hour. It is hard to stand for so long holding the baby. What’s worse, we are not allowed to bring a helper with us. If only they provided chairs!” lamented Lakshmi, a 27-year-old new mother from Nunna.
As far as medical equipment is concerned , the hospital is well furnished. The GH boasts of 10 Cpap machines, adequate number of incubators and portable X-ray machines. It also houses lab facilities especially for infants. The oxygen supply units are well maintained too.
Just as in private hospitals, each baby care unit is equipped with pulse and heart beat monitors. However, but there are not enough technicians to maintain the machines. “We have state-of-the-art infrastructure like in private hospitals, but the maintenance is poor and the blood bank here is running dry,” Dr E Gowri said.