The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Delay in medicare traumatises girl

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 16, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Delay in medicare traumatises girl

Special Correspondent

Lack of specialists compounds problem

ONGOLE: Manjula, an 18-year-old girl, had a traumatic experience at the Government hospital here after she suffered grievous injuries when the portico of her house collapsed due to lightning in Pakala Dalitwada in the early hours of Tuesday. She was rushed to the Government hospital here after she started bleeding profusely at 8 am.

Ms Manjula was administered two bottles of blood and four bottles of saline. After the surgeon and orthopaedist examined her, she was referred to the gynaecologist at the mother and child hospital, two km away, where her travails started. The gynaecologist sent her back to the Government hospital for scan and X-ray tests. When the patient came back with the reports at 3 pm, the doctor referred her to the Government General Hospital at Guntur without giving her any treatment.

Fuel cost sought

The hospital authorities demanded Rs. 800 towards fuel cost to provide an ambulance for shifting the patient to Guntur. As the girl's relatives took time to mobilize resources, her shifting was delayed. The patient could be taken to Guntur hospital only at 10 pm.

When contacted, the mother and child hospital superintendent, M. Ramachandra Rao, refuted the charge that Ms Manjula was not provided any treatment. He said that the hospital provided her an ambulance free of cost as the relatives pleaded that they were too poor to meet the cost. He said that the patient was shuttled between the two hospitals in the ambulance.

No specialists

The Vidya Vidhana Parishad district coordinator, Durga Prasad, said that they faced problems for want of adequate number of specialists at the hospital. As many specialists' posts remain vacant, they are constrained to refer the cases to Guntur. But doctors admitted that the patient was subjected to trauma because the two hospitals were not located in the same premises and also due to lack of coordination between the two hospitals. The result was that Manjula had to wait for more than 10 hours without her problem being diagnosed and had to be taken all the way to Guntur for treatment

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Andhra Pradesh