There's no sign of the ICU at Victoria Hospital that the government promised last December. As a result, there's little use for the 10 ventilators that cost over a crore
There's no sign of the ICU at Victoria Hospital that the government promised last December. As a result, there's little use for the 10 ventilators that cost over a crore
Ventilators worth Rs 1.4 crore are relegated to a corner in Victoria Hospital due to the government's failure to set up a promised surgical ICU.
Last December, the medical education department had promised to install the surgical intensive care unit (ICU) within three months after a MiD DAY expose on the hospital giving away that space to a private college to run PG classes.
Following the report, the college had to vacate the space but the ICU did not come up. As a result, 10 ventilators bought two months back for the ICU, at the rate of Rs 14 lakh per ventilator, are dumped in a corner.
When MiD DAY visited the hospital, burns patients occupied one ward and patients awaiting a plastic surgery the other.
"The burns ward is far from the premises and putting them here is uncalled for," said a senior doctor in the hospital. "The more serious issue is that post-operative infection has increased by 50 per cent after allowing the burns patients here."
The orthopaedic operation theatre is adjacent to it and there's a post-operative ward nearby.
"The operation theatre and the post-operative ward and the area around them must be highly sterile," the doctor said. "But the area is contaminated due to the presence of burns patients."
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There is still no surgical ICU for critical patients pics/Rameshu00a0H S |
Patients all
Tilak defended his decision saying even burns patients are patients and he had allowed the plastic surgery patients because there was not enough space for them in the department.
"The surgical ICU will be set up in three weeks from now," he said but had no reply when asked why the hospital had not met the deadline.
Nor did he have a solution for the ventilators lying around for months. "They can only be used when we install the ICU," he said.
Another promise, another deadline
Ramachandra Gowda, medical education minister, was sorry for missing the deadline and said he would see to it that the ICU was set up at the earliest.
Regarding the ventilators, he said, "Ten ventilators each for Bowring and Victoria hospitals were bought.
Bowring could use them because it had the ICU while Victoria has to wait till one comes up."u00a0 When told that the space meant for the ICU was being used by the plastic surgery department, he said he would visit the hospital and inspect.
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