HYDERABAD: Towering hospital buildings do not always translate into good treatment. The imposing structures of Gandhi Hospital, just over a year at the new premises in Musheerabad, now appear ludicrous when doctors and students agitate on the same campus for basic facilities like CT Scan and MRI.

In a rare confession recently, furious doctors even went on record saying a patient has lost his life due to absence of the equipment.

Rights panel view

The voices of protest has made even the State Human Rights Commission visit the hospital, inspect its wards and premises and say, yes, these equipment have to be here.

Both, doctors insist, are devices vital to any healthcare institution, particularly to one that caters to over 1,500 patients, mostly from the financially weak strata of society. And, it is not just for diagnostic procedures for regular patients, but for emergency cases as well that these are necessary.

Before Prabhu Das, who would not have lost his life had time not been wasted in shifting him to private centres for CT Scan and MRI, it was the turn of the accused person in the Paritala Ravindra murder Moddu Sreenu when he was brought to Gandhi Hospital after a blast.

In spite of serious security constraints, hospital authorities had to send him to a private clinic for CT Scan.

In fact, Gandhi Hospital's misery is not just absence of CT Scan or MRI. Delays in furnishing and providing equipment to operation theatres, acute medical care centres, post-operative wards and staff shortage in several wards have prevented the Musheerabad premise from becoming fully functional.

Wards unoccupied

Floors for inpatient and outpatient blocks lie vacant since furniture is not there.

Furniture has not been given for postgraduate and house residents hostel on the fourth floor. The ENT and ophthalmology wards to be commissioned shortly too have no furniture.

Several wards are unoccupied and patients are accommodated in other wards due to staff shortage.

Superintendent A.Y. Chary, however, has hope. The Government, he says, is conducting meetings and has directed officials to contact the hospital to "furnish it in the best possible way."

"Positive developments are taking place. We are expecting equipment and furniture shortly," Dr. Chary says.

But then, meetings and directives are not new. Given the past experience and the way the system has responded to such situations earlier, one can only wait with crossed fingers.

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