HYDERABAD: A total of 3,455 women and 1,519 men per every 1,00,000 in Telangana suffer from asthma, as per the National Family Health Survey of 2015-16. Shockingly, the State has only one government chest hospital which doubles up as a tertiary healthcare centre. On World Asthma Day, Express releases a ground report highlighting glaring shortfalls in the functioning and infrastructure of the Government General and Chest Hospital in Erragadda, Hyderabad.
The hospital caters to anywhere between 400-500 OPD patients every day and a regular of 50-100 inpatients on an average monthly basis from across the State with no casualty ward in place. A casualty ward is specifically designed and structured to handle emergency patients. In manifestation of pulmonary diseases, especially in cases of asthma, swine flu or acute tuberculosis, the patients come in with high-risk conditions of respiratory failure, which requires emergency care with a system to support it.
A junior doctor at the hospital, choosing to remain anonymous, explains, “A casualty ward will require basic nebulisation infrastructure, intubation machinery, centralised oxygen supply and emergency drugs like dopamine and adrenaline in addition to a team of doctors on stand-by. Procedures like intubation —wherein a flexible plastic tube is placed into the trachea or windpipe to create an open airway through which drugs are administered — are the most basic things we should be able perform in a hospital that deals with maximum cases of respiratory failure.”
Another junior doctor adds ruefully, “In such cases, the patients are sent to Gandhi and Osmania Hospital. It is so unfair to these patients who come from far-off districts are later sent to other healthcare centres.”
Dr Mahboob Khan, the superintendent of the hospital says, “The requirement of a casualty ward has been there for a while now. We met with the Director of Medical Education, Dr K Ramesh Reddy, on April 1 this year to discuss the construction of the ward and he has responded positively.”
However, government officials seem to be using the Model Code of Conduct until May 23, as an excuse to postpone constructions and recruitments that have been complained about months before the MCC had even come into force.
Students cry foul over faculty crunch
Post-graduate students in the hospital have also been complaining regarding the shortage of faculty. They clam that only five of the required 11 positions of associate, assistant and senior professors are full at the moment.
Why hosp needs a casualty ward
A casualty ward is specifically designed and structured to handle emergency patients. In the manifestation of pulmonary diseases, especially in cases of asthma, swine flu or acute tuberculosis, the patients come in with high-risk conditions of respiratory failure, which requires emergency care with a system to support it.