Lament of the people against the lack of management in NIMHANS
Bengaluru, Aug. 23, 2018: The Emergency Care ward for Neurosurgery and Neurosciences at the National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences lacks beds, which is causing a lot of trouble to attend to patients. According to the nurse in charge Kavitha D., the triage area has a limit of 50 to 52 beds only, while on the other hand, there are two priority wards.
Priority Ward 1 has only six beds and Priority Ward 2 has a limit of 17 beds only. The ICU-in-charge Subhagya N. said “the ICU has a limit of 16 patients at a time and this is a major issue”. Kavitha D. also said “police cases have been filed by the faculty of NIMHANS for about six months against the public’s rage, where the doctors and other staffs were mistreated for such lack of management; this is a daily struggle every day after 6 p.m. and is extremely difficult to tackle.”
According to the Casualty Medical Officer Dr. Bhavani Kumar, “everyday around 20 to 30 patients come in the morning, 25 to 30 in the afternoon and more than 40 in the evening, and sometimes even more than that”. The CMO also stated that no patients are refused but in certain cases, in order to deal with the increasing number, the patients are treated with only the basic requirement, and advised to consult a general hospital.
Dr. Pawan, a neurologist who works in the triage area in NIMHANS stated” This is only one small problem and increasing the number of beds or staffs would not be a solution to this problem, this is directly related to the Indian medical system and it would be very important that the GDP gets to look into it “.
As per the World Health Organization’s measurement of overall health system performance for 191 countries, India is ranking 112th out of 191 countries.” The health service delivery rule of the WHO says “Regular updating of the number of beds in facilities, and validation every three-five years is required through a complete census.”
Dr. Puttanna Vanaganahalli, an environmental specialist waiting in the Emergency care since last night around 10 p.m., was trying to get assistance for his niece Arpita Pradeep, who is suffering from a congenital problem.
Dr. Vanaganahalli mentioned “management could be done in a better way. Normally in other hospitals, patients are quickly treated and shifted to the ICU if required but here, there’s nothing like that.”He added, “The doctors are paying attention but there can be a lot more improvement. We already informed the doctors that MRI, CATSCAN and angiogram were done, yet this morning the staff did not look into that information and shifted the patient all the way from the triage area to the Digital subtraction angiography department, and after we stated again that all the tests have been done, the doctors shifted the patient back to the triage area – therefore this entire trip since last night was a waste of time.
Since then, Arpita along with her relatives has been waiting in the triage area.” Ironically, he also defined the triage area by saying “this whole thing looks like a big ward and don’t know what to say about this”.
According to Dr. Vanaganahalli, the patient (Arpita Pradeep) didn’t receive the time slot for her operation for several hours last night and was told that as soon as the operation theatre gets vacant, she will be shifted for the operation.
With reference to the lack of beds in NIMHANS Dr. Vanaganahalli said “We just accepted it. Even if we did complain, the doctors would end up saying; this is how the system is. ”“One of the ministers from The Ministry of Transport of Karnataka was also present in the triage area to visit a relative, and after getting a view of the scenario in the neurosurgery emergency care, the minister lamented about it” said patient Arpita Pradeep’s relative, Dr. Puttanna Vanaganahalli.
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