LOOK, WHERE WE FOUND STRETCHERS!
Like the Kanpur man whose son died on his shoulder for want of hospital care and stretcher, many people in the city who bring critically ill or injured kin to hospitals have to carry them for lack of wheelchairs and stretchers
Getting a stretcher, the first thing a critical patient requires, is one of the toughest tasks in government hospitals in Lucknow.
During a status check in the hospitals it was found that medical staff carried medicines and other related items (left) from stores to departments on stretchers. This is done during peak OPD hours when stretchers and wheelchairs are required the most.
Two days after a child died for want of stretcher and attention in Kanpur’s LLR hospital (above), one such stretcher was found to ferry ACs there.
CASE ONE: Abdul Hamid needed a wheelchair for his injured wife but all his pleas to the medical staff in Lohia hospital were in vain. After desperately trying to arrange a wheelchair for half an hour, he finally carried her as he could not manage an ID proof which was mandatory to get a wheelchair.
CASE TWO: Rakesh had to take his father from the Trauma Centre to the medicine department but it took him half an hour to find a stretcher that had all the four wheels moving.
LUCKNOW: Getting a stretcher, the first thing a critical patient requires, is one of the toughest tasks in government hospitals here.
“I had gone to the hospital in a hurry as my wife Manora was badly bitten badly by a dog in the night and I needed a wheelchair for her as she could not walk. The woman sitting on the wheelchair desk demanded an ID proof from me which I did not have,” said Abdul Hamid who came to Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital with his wife.
Almost every patient who comes to the hospital in a serious condition and is unable to walk on his own has a similar tale.
Octogenarian Vimla Devi’s son decided to carry her from the OPD to the three-wheeler as she could not walk and her son found it tough to get a stretcher.
“Getting a stretcher is a big issue. Each time I need it for my father admitted in KGMU I first go out, search for one and bring it. But this takes about an hour,” said Amit whose father is to be operated a day later.
The problem is not lack of stretchers on the campus, but the fact that they are either defunct or lying at a place where they cannot be located.
Officials admit the problem and give reasons for it. Sudden inflow of patients and improper handling of wheelchairs and stretchers damages these equipments so much that at least a dozen can been seen lying for repair in any of the hospitals.
Theft of wheelchairs has given rise to the need of an ID proof to get a stretcher. “We have several entry and exit points and in the past several wheelchairs were stolen. Moreover, those who use stretchers leave them anywhere on the campus, forcing our staff to search for them every day,” said Dr Omkar Yadav, chief medical superintendent of Lohia hospital.
He said ever since provision for ID proof had been introduced, wheelchairs were coming back and were being used by more patients every day.
A similar problem has forced the KGMU to introduce a system of deposit for wheelchairs in the New OPD. “We bought new and sophisticated wheelchairs and stretchers that were stolen. Hence we were forced to introduce this system but only in OPD and not in the Trauma Centre,” said Prof SC Tiwari, chief medical superintendent of KGMU.