Airport style system in place at SGPGIMS

LUCKNOW: The Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) follows an airport style system in providing wheel chairs and stretchers to patients.

The wheel chairs or stretchers are available as soon as the patient comes out of his ambulance.

In fact, sometimes when beds are full in the emergency, the serious patients are admitted on stretchers only.

There are five staff members available to pull stretchers and wheel chairs of patients in all the three shifts.

Presently, there are 125 wheel chairs and 65 stretchers in the premier medical institute which can be used by patients.

Three staff members are deployed to collect the wheel chairs and stretchers left by patients in various wards.

“Quick movement of patients on the campus to get treated during serious illness is essential. That is why we have arranged wheel chairs and stretchers in adequate number,” said chief medical superintendent, SGPGIMS professor PK Singh.

“A hospital stretcher plays a very important part in patient care as it is used to shift patients from one part to another. Most of the patients who come to PGI are unable to move by themselves and need to be carried by people or by stretchers. That is why we have organised a system in which no one is deprived of a wheel chair or a stretcher,” he said.

Volunteers of an NGO also help the patients arriving at the PGI. Sometimes if the staff or volunteers are not available for help, the attendants can take the wheel chairs and then leave them inside the hospital, as is done on airports.

“Initially we chained the wheel chairs but later on we decided to keep them free for all. However, there was risk of chairs being taken away by thieves but this is a risk which a hospital has to take for the benefit of patients,” said Dr PK Singh.

Director, SGPGIMS, professor Rakesh Kapoor said, “When it comes to patient care there is no compromise. We want to give the best of facilities to everyone, right from wheel chairs to patient care. Our systems like HRF and services of stretchers and patient guidance have been appreciated even by other states.”