Life tough for kin of patients too
LUCKNOW: Nisar Ahmad, 25, who hails from a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, has been waiting outside the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital for the past four days for his pregnant wife Shehnaz’s delivery.
Ahmad brought her to the hospital for a complicated case of childbirth, hoping to get better treatment in Lucknow.
But things did not turn out as planned. “My wife’s condition is critical. The hospital has asked us to arrange blood. I am too weak to donate blood. As I have come from a village, I do not know where to look for a donor and how to arrange blood,” said Ahmad, who is putting up in a rain basera of the hospital in this hot and sultry atmosphere, praying desperately for the safe birth of the child.
His brother-in-law alleged, “Doctors are not attending the patient properly.”
“Ever since we came here, we have been made to run from one room to another. No doctor is informing us about the actual condition of my wife,” said Ahmad. “I have no choice but to wait here. I cannot afford to go to a private hospital,” he added.
Gudiya Mishra, 20, another underprivileged woman, got her father discharged from the hospital on Friday.
Her father, Narayan Mishra, was diagnosed with tuberculosis and a heart ailment.
“Doctors have always casually examined my father. A lot of medical tests have been done but his condition has not improved,” she said. Other attendants of patients also shared similar problems.
Rubbishing the allegations that doctors were not looking after patients well and were casual in their approach, director, at RML Hospital, Dr Devendra Sigh Negi said,
“Such allegations are baseless”. About attendants waiting outside in the hot and sultry weather, he said, “There are sufficient arrangements for patients’ attendants in the hospital. We have makeshift shelters with fans but maybe because of intense heat, they are inadequate. We are trying our best to ensure that attendants get adequate facilities.”
“Also one must understand that often an entire family of 3-4 people comes to the hospital with one patient. This is where the problem lies. How can a hospital make arrangements for the entire family of a patient? They must realise that it causes inconvenience to others too,” he said. RISHI KANT & AYUSHI MISHRA