Rain basera in a sorry state, complain patients’ attendants
LUCKNOW: Aamna sat on the dirty floor of Balrampur Hospital’s rain basera (shelter for attendants), eating her lunch, surrounded by a swarm of flies, while her mother-in-law, afflicted with jaundice lay hospitalized.
“With no appropriate place to sleep, we end up next to the filthy open drains. Ironically we’re here to treat my mother-in-law’s jaundice but the way we live here we’re likely to catch jaundice ourselves,” said Aamna, who left Bharaich a week ago and has been staying here ever since.
“We’re living like vagrants here. I sleep wherever I find a place. The mosquitos bite all day and night, threatening us with dengue and malaria ,” said Zakhir Ali, Aamna’s husband.
On Saturday, HT carried out a reality check at Balrampur hospital and spoke to patients’ attendants putting up in the rain basera of the hospital. It was found that the shelter had some 10 worn out mattresses on the floor and even fewer beds. The room was full of stench owing to open drains in the vicinity. “Majboori hai, kya kare? (We have no choice; what can we do)”, said Santosh Pandey, who brought his father-in-law to the hospital with severe brain injury and kidney damage from Bihar.
“The sanitation is very poor for the patient’s family. We eat from the streets all the time. The sanitation workers have a bad temperament. In my knowledge the basera hasn’t been cleaned since I came here,” said Santosh, who has been living at the shelter for over five days .
“Once in 24 hours the doctors visit and check the patients. The rest of the medical staff handles
the patients roughly. They’re given food only once by the hospital throughout the day,” claimed Raj Kumar, a Malihabad farmer who has come for treatment of his father’s spine ailments.
Kumar even alleged that those “with influence and money are treated faster and better.” .
Vinay Kumar Singh, a 65-yearold man from Sarojani Nagar, has been living at the basera for over a month as his daughter suffers from intestinal gangrene. The old man accused both the cleaning staff and the common man for the foul situation. “People litter around carelessly,” he said.
“Strangely, despite dustbins right outside the basera, people throw stuff just where they sit. The basera and its vicinity are offhandedly cleaned once in 5 days,” he said. At night the Basera is so packed that people take to the pavement in front of it where drains and filth lie open.
What is more, every single person had complaints with the washrooms of the hospital. Most of them use the paid public toilets outside instead of the free hospital toilets. Both the male and female washrooms were too awfully kept to be used, they said. Sometimes the washrooms are shared by both the sexes.
“Behad gandagi hai ( utterly disgusting ),” said Vinay Kumar, the old farmer.
“The first two hours of the day the washrooms can still be used but with passing time they are unusable. Some have doors missing,” said Aamna.
Food also remains an issue. The rain basera has a community kitchen that can be used by the people at ₹ 40 an hour. However, the utensils are damaged and muck coats its platform. Inevitably, the kin of the patients who come from tremote areas survive on street food.