PUDUKKOTTAI: For the 1.5 lakh residents of Karambakudi taluk, the Karambakudi Government Hospital is the go-to for medical emergencies, yet the facility lacks the necessary infrastructure to cater to their needs.
On Friday, the Save Karambakudi Hospital Committee, an umbrella body comprising various political organisations and the general public, launched a protest demanding basic facilities at the hospital. A Bahardeen, a member of the committee, said, "As of now, the hospital has duty doctors for the morning, not for the evening and night hours.
In case of an emergency, the nurses would call the same doctor. The Pudukkottai Medical College is 45 km from here, so people who are in critical condition go there at great risk." First opened in 1971 as a Primary Health Centre, the facility was upgraded to a taluk government hospital in 2015.
But lacking so much as an emergency care unit, at least 10 people in the past three years have died for want of emergency intervention, said protestors. "The hospital receives at least 400 outpatients per day since there are no other health facilities nearby," said S Mohammad Yusuf, another protestor. "Burdened by severe staff shortage, the existing staff are sometimes not very pleasant with the patients.
There have been times when the hospital has had to go without doctors during the day as well. We've submitted multiple petitions to the district collectorate and the Chief Minister's cell, but no action has yet been taken," he added. The protestors said they would carry on the stir till their demands were met. A district-level health official said,
"We had sent a proposal to set up an emergency care unit and increase doctor and nurses' strength, but so far we've seen no positive signs. At present, there are three doctors of which two are permanent and one is deputed from a nearby hospital.
But we cannot assign them on night duty since the common guideline says a government hospital should have a minimum of four doctors to assign night duty. We understand the people's demands for the hospital, but our hands are tied. We need to wait and see whether the government intervenes."