Imagine the plight of patients at the state’s prime hospital where even a stretcher is not made available to the patients on arrival.

This sorry state of affairs we are discussing is a reality that patients and their attendants have to face at the valley’s lone Gynecological Hospital, The Lal Ded.

Such is the situation in the hospital that attendants have to lift the patients on their backs when they are referred here in emergency situations.

Muhammad Shafi, Thursday evening brought his wife from Sub-District Hospital, Kreeri, who had recently given birth to a baby, and after developing some complications was brought to LD Hospital, Srinagar.

On reaching LD, Muhammad Shafi himself had to look for a stretcher to take his wife inside the hospital building, with the help of other attendants standing outside the causality block.

It did not stop there, he after bringing the stretcher, had to take her wife out of the ambulance in which she was brought from Kreeri, and here also, the locals helped him in doing so.

Apparently, there is no one from the hospital staff stationed at the casualty block to assist the incoming patients in getting down from the ambulances and arranging stretchers for them.

While talking to this reporter, a visibly annoyed, Muhammad Shafi said that the mismanagement adds to the miseries of already tense patients and their attendants.

“I had to do everything on my own, taking her (his wife) down from the ambulance, arranging a stretcher, and then taking her inside,” he said, adding what should have been the job of hospital staff, is being taken care by the attendants who are here to attend on their patients.

Curiously, there is a desk managed by a non-governmental organization that is doing the job of providing the stretchers and other assistance to the patients being referred to the hospital.

However, people around said that they don’t remain alert on their duty, and the attendants have to personally go to them and ask for the stretchers.

“If you are having a patient who is dying outside, you are supposed to leave the patient there and arrange a stretcher, if you don’t do that and wait for help, your patient will end up dead,” says Bilal Ahmad, an attendant.

Hospital authorities are saying that the job of providing on arrival assistance is being handled by the NGO that is stationed in the casualty block, and the hospital has got nothing to do with it.

“We are taking care of other things, and the on arrival assistance is being provided by the NGO that is working at many other hospital in Srinagar,” said an official, adding that Hospital administration has handed over the duty to them.

As per rules, the hospital administration should station some personnel at the entrance of casualty to ensure that the patients are escorted inside the complex; however, what is happening is totally against it.

Guest