TIRUCHY: The demand for functional wheelchairs and stretchers on campus being twice that of the supply is often forcing patients at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) and their attendants to wait several crucial -- and anxious minutes -- to pass by before they can access one for their own emergency.
According to sources, the hospital with 1,600 beds currently has 20 stretchers and wheelchairs each made available for use in the whole of the campus, including the speciality block.
With several of them found requiring frequent repairs, hospital authorities acknowledge the issue is not one of complete absence but rather of the demand exceeding supply.
A ward attendant pointed out that stretchers are constantly in circulation, with some needing to carry a patient all the way to the topmost floor, during critical situations. We manage with what we have but sometimes there is a short wait until one of them becomes available. If we get more of them, it will reduce the pressure on both patients and staff, the staff member said.
Ambulance drivers, too, adapt during emergencies.
“When we attend to critical cases, we don’t wait for hospital staff to fetch stretchers. We immediately carry the patient in, because time is crucial,” said one driver, noting that additional stretchers would help speed up emergency handling. The shortage, visitors say, is most felt at the hospital’s older building currently serving as the outpatient block.
The block sees a daily average of 5,000 outpatients. “We waited nearly 20 minutes before a wheelchair came for my mother,” said C Andrews Ravi in the OP block on campus.
“It is not that wheelchairs are absent but more are needed for a hospital of this size as more elderly visit the OP block,” he added.
Taking up the issue at the District Health Assembly Meeting convened last Thursday, MGMGH Dean Dr S Kumaravel placed the need for 25 new wheelchairs and stretchers each to meet the growing requirements of the hospital. Expanding the number of mobility assistance devices would ease patient movement as well as staff workload, the dean had stressed in the meeting.