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When friends, neighbours counted the most

KOCHI: It was indeed a day when only friends and neighbours were there for help in times of crisis. As always, the worst affected by the hartal on Tuesday was patients in a serious condition.

Tension was writ large on Bindu’s face and Asha looked lost while they attended to the needs of their mother who was brought to the government hospital at Thripunithura from Puthenkurisu on Tuesday. The hartal had added to their worries.

Vomiting and a spinning head were the symptoms from the night before. The nearby government hospital at Vadavukode referred the patient to the hospital in the taluk headquarters, where a heart problem was detected. The patient had to be immediately taken to the district general hospital. An autorickshaw had brought them this far, and though in a hurry to leave, the driver agreed to take them to the district hospital.

A good neighbour had arranged for the autorickshaw and he only paid the driver, Ms. Bindu said. “We do not say no when somebody has to be reached to hospital,” the driver said. The girls’ father, Kunjappan, and the neighbour accompanied the autorickshaw on a motorcycle.

In P.S. Mission Hospital, relatives of Nithin, one of the injured in a fireworks accident at Maradu on Monday, came walking all the way from Panangad, around 6 km away. His friends Libin and Sreekumar, who managed to escape with bruises, managed to find food for him and his mother.

A woman from Njarackal was brought to the district hospital for delivery. Since she did not have her mother to take care of her, a couple of women from the neighbourhood had taken upon themselves the job of giving support to her. They all reached the hospital in a car arranged by helpful neighbours.

There was a definite drop in the number of outpatients in hospitals. The general hospital had nearly 200 compared with the 1,000 patients daily. The 146-bed government hospital in Thripunithura had more than 200 patients, said Hospital Superintendent Shirley Scaria.

“We had enough staff to do the hospital functions,” said the nursing superintendents at Thripunithura and general hospitals. The ambulance at the general hospital was put to use to transport the staff as no other vehicles were available. In Thripunithura, the only ambulance that the hospital has is in an unusable condition. The hospital usually takes the ambulance of a nearby private medical laboratory for emergency referral cases.

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