Afaq Bhat
Srinagar, Nov 29: The Chest Disease Hospital in Srinagar—one of the exclusive facilities for treating COVID-19 patients—has been in news for the wrong reasons in the recent past.
Recently, attendants of the patients undergoing treatment at the CD Hospital had complained that they were facing immense hardships due to medicos “not cooperating” with them and other allied facilities being in shambles.
An expert while talking to Precious Kashmir said, “The CD Hospital has been bearing the brunt of patient rush from the day pandemic broke out. In the initial days the medicos were clueless about the line of treatment they should adopt to treat the positive patients. But along with the passage of time they learnt how to treat the virus.”
He said, “Despite situation easing out, the management of the CD Hospital seems to be still being caught in the wrangles that should have been resolved long back. We are coming across the complaints that washrooms are not clean, medicines are not available and other small issues. These are small problems which need tio be handled at a lower level.”
An attendant of a patient said, “The biggest problem that COVID-19 patients are facing is that the doctors are inaccessible. At times it becomes very difficult to find a medico who can even administer an injection or tell what should be done to handle a critical patient.”
He said, “Critical patients are worst sufferers. They need to be looked after properly. One can understand that the CD Hospital is working with the limited resources and the patients are arriving in large numbers but that doesn’t mean that victims have to be ignored.”
Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic hundreds of patients used to visit the CD Hospital for the treatment of respiratory disorder but due to it being turned into an exclusive COVID care facility these patients have been left with nowhere to go.
A doctor working in the CD Hospital said, “The issues that are being raised by the COVID-19 victims and their attendants, and other patients with respiratory disorders are being looked into. We are trying to come up with a solution. Last nine months have been difficult despite that we are trying our level best to cope up with the rush and put everything in place.”
He said, “As far as the availability of the medicos is concerned, doctors and paramedical staff are available 24×7. In the past we have witnessed cases where doctors were assaulted for none of their faults. People should understand that doctors too are human beings and they are working in a very difficult situation.”
