Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad   

Bad conditions at hospital persist

- PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar

Breaking rules: Staff pile syringes and plastic drip bottles outside Gandhi Hospital at Secunderabad for sale.

HYDERABAD: Some things never change. So are the appalling conditions at Gandhi Hospital. The recent opening of new out-patient block promised “to deliver the goods” for patients. However, things have remained the same.

The air is sickening. No need to get surprised if patients coming here to get treated fall sick because of this. On the backside of the newly opened out-patient block, lies the dark underbelly of Gandhi Hospital. Huge mounds of garbage, both domestic and bio-medical, lies unattended reeking of noxiousness.

Relatives of patients relieving themselves on the sly, women cooking their food in the vicinity, urchins and delinquents smoking the ubiquitous ‘beedi’ and squatting, a few cleaning staff lugging garbage in a rusted and squeaky trolley before hurriedly dumping the waste in the open fields. refrain

If one imagines this setting straight out of a village, he can’t be blamed for that. This is a reality at Gandhi Hospital. Ironically enough, while inaugurating the out-patient wards, health officials had touted this facility as the ‘model facility’ for other hospitals in city to replicate.

“They have closed down all the toilets inside the out-patient block, where else you want us to go” is the common refrain. Unable to control unsocial elements and outsiders from trespassing, the hospital officials have closed down shelters and toilets built for the poor on the hospital premises.

Syringes, packets of unused blood, outdated foils of medicines, cotton smeared with blood, body hair are strewn around in this huge dump. Stagnant water in trenches provide congenial environment for mosquitoes to breed and proliferate.

Old tyres of hospital ambulances are heaped one over the other with stagnant water in them.

“The stink from backside of the out-patient block envelops the whole complex here. It is very frustrating for people like us but we don’t have options. Do we?” asks Kanchanamma, a relative of a patient.

The hospital authorities have ambitious plans to develop this dump. “Staff quarters and a nursing college were supposed to come up in that particular place. Somehow the works got delayed. We would definitely want this place to be cleared of all the garbage,” RMO Gandhi Hospital G. Hanumanulu tried to assure.

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