Thiruvananthapuram : The Women and Children Hospital at Thycaud became the symbol of the changing face of Government hospitals when a new block with all modern amenities was commissioned at the hospital last month.

A month later, the hospital authorities are struggling to keep the high standard of hygiene and cleanliness that they promised to deliver, thanks to the poor civic sense of hospital users and a dearth of cleaning staff.

The new block, built at a cost of over Rs.7 crore, is the first sophisticated patient care facility in the Government sector. The project was started with the assistance from European Commission. The new block has 250 beds with all modern patient amenities, in over 50,000 sq.ft. space. The general wards here are quite modern and each has six cubicles, which give more privacy to patients and two attached toilets each.

Hospital authorities are now at a loss as to how the public can be educated to keep the hospital environment infection-free. They said that their request not to litter the place and to keep the toilets clean fell on deaf ears. "We have kept different coloured buckets and garbage bins all over the place for people to dump waste. Yet, the people continue to throw garbage in open place or spit out of the window. Paucity of toilet and unclean toilets with faulty flush systems are a common complaint in most of the Government hospitals. Here, even after being provided with clean and modern toilets, people seem to be quite unconcerned about keeping it that way," a hospital official said.

Barely a month after the new building was commissioned, plumbers had to be called in to clear the toilets which were blocked due to plastic and cloth. Cigarette stubs are carelessly thrown on the floor.

The hospital authorities had insisted that only the patient may be allowed to eat in the ward and that food should be brought to the hospital only in proper vessels and not paper packs. But the authorities said they met with strong resistance from the people on both these counts and that it was not uncommon now to find several visitors having lunch with patients inside the wards.

"The security staff, earlier, used to confiscate the lunch packs, which led to a spate of complaints. We were forced to relax this rule," a hospital staff said.

Shortage of cleaning staff in the hospital and lack of cooperation from the public aggravated the situation. The hospital authorities are now preparing to hire experts to teach the public about hospital hygiene. They are also proposing that heavy fines be imposed on people who violate the cleanliness rules.

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