BANGALORE : Attendants, who stay with cancer patients at the Kidwai Institute of Oncology here, are shocked by the filth in the rooms allotted to them.
Located at Hombegowda Nagar and near Bangalore Diary, the two dharamshalas attached to the hospital provide accommodation at `100 a week, while individual rooms come for `150 a day.
“The dormitories stink and have paan stains and food on the floor. If we tell the staff, they scold us saying patients should be more responsible,” says Nanjappa, whose mother has been admitted to the hospital. He believes the dirty conditions add to the worries of the patients and their attendants. “They dare do this only because we are poor,” he says.
Patients assume the rooms are cleaner than the dormitories, but soon discover they were mistaken. “No one comes to clean the rooms, so we bought detergent and scrubbed the room and toilets ourselves,” said Rajappa, whose father is undergoing treatment.
Some doctors and nurses allegedly ill-treat the patients and their attendants.“The doctors ask us to stay in the emergency ward, but as soon as he leaves, the nurses evict us. Many times they insult and shove old patients out,” he said, adding that a doctor even threatened to beat him up once.
He understands the hospital could be facing a shortage of beds. “But they can be compassionate. After all, this is a hospital,” he said.
Dr M Vijay Kumar, director of the institute, said, “We have a 60-bed paediatric ward, and we need 40 beds more. A philanthropist from Mysore is setting up a separate wing on the first floor and the construction is almost complete.”
The lack of space has necessitated the split of the children’s ward, which is housed in different parts of the hospital. “Once the new ward is set up, it will be the best.” He added the dharamshalas were not part of the hospital. “They are more like extensions of the hospital. It is a place for patients and patient attendants to stay.”
He blames the lack of hygiene for some of the problems. “Since they are from rural areas, they do not know much about cleanliness, which we constantly train them about. There is also work going on at the stormwater drain, adding to the stench,” he said.
(With inputs from Akshay Prasad)