Jhansi hospital cries for attention
IN A SHAMBLES Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College has a single vendor supplying oxygen, mostly on credit, and no backup plan in case of emergency, also struggles with staff shortage
The 700-bed hospital at Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi — mainstay of the healthcare system in Uttar Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region — seems to be running on luck and prayers.
It has a single vendor supplying oxygen, mostly on credit, and no backup plan in case of an emergency.
The medical college owed the supplier, Gauri Gas Private Limited, ₹36 lakh, including unpaid dues from last year.
But as the Gorakhpur tragedy unfolded, the Jhansi hospital received funds from the state government on August 14, clearing the vendor’s bills up to June this year.
The contract with the supplier had expired in March this year and the process for fresh tenders is yet to start. The company, however, continues to supply oxygen cylinders to the medical college.
“Imagine if this vendor backs out over delayed payment. The college has no back up in place,” says a former doctor.
The hospital, which has a normal occupancy rate of 95%, maintains a reserve of oxygen cylinders that can last for eight to ten hours at the most.
The daily consumption of oxygen at the hospital ranges between 120 and 150 large cylinders. And in case supply gets disrupted, it has a reserve of 25 to 50 cylinders.
Last year, the medical college received ₹4 crore of the total ₹6 crore earmarked for it.
The money was spent on buying medicines, injections and lab chemicals.
But the remaining amount, roughly ₹2 crore, lapsed.
“That is the primary reason the vendor could not be paid on time; the payments were cleared when we received funds,” said college principal NS Sengar.
“We have cleared the bills up to June this year. I am with this college for the last 18 years and I haven’t seen any problem like what happened in Gorakhpur arising here,” he said.
Sengar, however, did not reveal that the first thing he did after the Gorakhpur deaths was send an SOS to the government for payment of ₹36 lakh to the vendor, which is yet to receive the payment for July this year.
The medical college, which gets patients from seven Uttar Pradesh districts and even neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, virtually struggles with fund crunch and staff shortage.
The state of the hospital can be gauged from the woes the patients face here.
“We don’t get anything other than ointment from the hospital,” said Raghuveer Singh. His nephew Sahab was badly injured in a road accident and is hospitalised at the medical college for the last 23 days.
Patients also complain of poor hygiene on the campus and inside the wards.
“You know the Gorakhpur tragedy changed the scene a bit; we got clean bed sheets the first time in months,” says Chandra Shekhar of Moth, Jalaun.
His father lost both his legs after he fell from a train.
“When we arrived here, we didn’t get a stretcher. I had to search for it; imagine how much time is wasted when you have a serious patient with you,” he said.
Hospital sources said in the absence of maintenance, most of the equipment here is in a precarious condition.
“The college is managing it with 50% less staff and funds; almost no investment has been made to buy new equipment in years,” said sources, adding, “You could say the entire medical college is running on jugaad.”
The Allahabad high court on Friday directed the state government to submit before it the findings of the inquiry conducted so far and the reasons behind the death of children in BRD Medical College last week.
More than 30 kids had died at the hospital in 48 hours allegedly due to lack of oxygen supply.
Hearing a bunch of PILs seeking a judicial probe into the tragedy, the bench of chief justice DB Bhosale and justice Yashwant Varma further directed the state government to place before it the details of the committee, if any, constituted for the inquiry along with details of its members.
The court fixed August 29 as the next date of hearing.
The bunch of PILs, filed by Sunita Sharma and several others, request the court to direct the state government to hold a judicial inquiry into the incident and punish the guilty.
It also alleges that several children died due to carelessness of the doctors.
The Railway Protection Force (RPF) suspects that a group of “ticketed passengers” could be behind a series of thefts on Rajdhani Express trains, including the one on August Kranti Rajdhani on August 16, a senior RPF official said.
The RPF believes that thieves who stole valuables and cash worth ₹10-15 lakh from sleeping passengers on board August Kranti Rajdhani may have followed a pattern, for similar thefts were reported on Rajdhani trains on two earlier occasions.
The digital footprints of passengers travelling on August Kranti on August 16 were being scanned to see if any of them travelled on the Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani on August 9, when three passengers complained of thefts under similar circumstances.
“We are checking to see if groups of passengers travelled on both the trains and also scanning them on the basis of gender, age and other parameters,” a senior official of the ministry said. PTI