Patients flocking to General Hospital

KOCHI: At a time when 2,000 patients are flocking to the General Hospital each day, there are only three doctors to treat them. The Ernakulam General Hospital does not have adequate staff. The hospital authorities are finding it hard to deal with the mounting load of patients. To add more trouble, the hospital also lacks basic facilities.“About 2,500 patients are approaching the General Hospital every day in the outpatient category and about 40-45 cases are also admitted in the hospital every day. To deal with these patients, we have only three doctors,” said Dr Junaid Rehman, Superintendent, General Hospital, Ernakulam.The authorities concerned have also confirmed that various wards in the hospital are cramped beyond limit. The mothers are forced to sleep in limited areas owing to the unavailability of beds. “Because of this, we are not able to give proper care to all the patients,” he said. Dr Junaid said that as most of the other hospitals in the periphery does not conduct surgeries after 1 pm, the patients are flocking to the General Hospital. The hospital is not flawless here too as it does not have enough anaesthetists. “We have only three permanent anaesthetists and we also make use of on-call anaesthetist in times of emergency,” he said. Not only doctors but also the hospital too has requirements in various other sections. “We have intimated to the authorities about it several times but in vain. We are trying our best to handle the issue,” he said. P N Srinivas, District Rural Health Officer said the unavailability of staff in the Health Department is putting a lot of impediments in carrying out the measures intended to check the outbreak of epidemics.