CUTTACK: Videos depicting gross negligence in management of Corona Isolation Ward at SCB Medical College and Hospital (MCH) have yet again gone viral on social media. It is alleged that while coronavirus positive patients are forced to lie on the floor due to lack of beds, doctors are not attending to both positive and suspected patients.
While one of the videos show a positive patient, who was lying on the floor, dragging himself towards the bed after it was vacated, another reveals how patients are being compelled to change oxygen cylinders by themselves with the hospital staff not paying heed to despite repeated requests.
In the video, an infected person and another suspected patient were found dragging an oxygen cylinder to the bed of another Covid-19 patient and attaching it with no hospital staff and attendants coming forward to assist him. “The patient who was undergoing oxygen therapy on the floor shifted to the bed himself after it was vacated. Though he requested, the staff did not turn up to shift the oxygen cylinder following which, he requested us to help,” said the youths in the video. Another man from Banki’s Kalapathar area said he was tested positive on August 18, had to undergo home isolation for four days and later shifted to a Covid Care Centre on August 21.
While he developed breathing problem, he was shifted to SCB Isolation Ward on August 23. But no doctor or other staff attended him till Monday night, he alleged. While the hospital authorities could not be contacted, SCB MCH Corona Nodal Officer Prof MR Patnaik said he would look into the matter. Authorities of SCBMCH, which has remained a non-Covid hospital, had set up a 260-bed isolation ward to isolate positive and suspected patients till they are shifted to designated Covid hospitals. However, sources said, there are not enough beds in the facility.
Similarly, around 50 positive patients are yet to be shifted to designated Covid-19 hospitals, thereby posing infection threat for the suspected patients. Besides, due to lack of space in the isolation ward, authorities of the premier Government run hospital of the State are also facing difficulty in shifting positive cases which are being detected from isolation ward of the various departments.