Treated like ‘untouchables’, patients recall their ordeal in Pune government hospitals

PUNE: Rude medical staffers treating patients like “untouchable”, filthy toilets and unpalatable food, coronavirus patients recall their ordeal at government-run hospitals in the city, which scared and shook them more than the disease.
After finding blood in his vomit, a Kondhwa resident landed at the government hospital where he was made to wait for one hour before anybody checked on him. “I was attended to only after the people who were sitting next to me told the staffers that I looked very sick and needed urgent attention. They then did some investigations,” he said.

After conducting the basic check-up, the person was told to get admitted in the hospital. “At this juncture, a nurse called out my name from at least a 100-ft distance, leaving me wondering if somebody really called out my name or was I just hallucinating. In no condition to walk due to breathlessness, I somehow managed to give my swab sample for Covid-19,” he recalled.
When his test report came positive for coronavirus the next morning, he was shifted to an upper floor. With his condition worsened through the night, he was unable to even get out of his bed. Yet, at the time of shifting, he was made to walk two floors above. “When I reached the designated ward, I saw six beds kept very close to each other in a room. I didn’t have cough then, but contracted it after being shifted to the ward where other patients were coughing consistently,” he said.
The patient was then asked to collect his breakfast. “I was surprised that I had to go outside my ward in another passage for breakfast. Even water was kept there. So, patients wanting to drink water had to go there and fill up their bottles,” he said, adding, “I did not even take a bath or refreshed myself at the room-attached washrooms as it was filthy and would stink badly. I did not see any anybody cleaning it either.”
By the end of the day, he started throwing up blood again in his vomit. “Though I tried to tell the nurses, they did not help. They put two tablets in a paper chit and gave to me. The next morning, when I told the doctors what I had gone through the entire night, they told me that I was going to be shifted to another hospital,” he said, adding, “There was a marked difference in the facilities and treatment in the second hospital," he added.
Another patient, who was admitted in Sassoon hospital, said the medical staff treated all the patients like "untouchables". A recovered patient whose 55-year-old mother is still undergoing treatment at Sassoon hospital said, "My mother keeps pleading me to take her away from the hospital. She tells me that the staffers are extremely rude. The bathroom is also very dirty and food quality extremely poor. She barely manages to eat chapati and the vegetable provided to her."
Patients undergoing care at the Sassoon hospital also expressed their anger about non-cooperative class four staff. "Despite being conscious, mamas (class four staff) always put an adult diaper around me. When I asked for a pot, they refused. They even didn’t allow me to use the loo when I was healthy enough to move around," a 40-year-old Covid-19 survivor from Tadiwala Road said.
A 49-year-old patient from Wanowrie said, “I had moderate symptoms of coronavirus. Though I was not intubated or on ventilator support, I was not allowed to eat food at the Sassoon hospital. They gave me parenteral nutrition through the drip. After some private doctors serving at the hospital raised their voice against it, people like me were allowed food."
A nurse, who did not wish to be named, said, "In a case, doctors realized that the person was dead when they started extubating the patient. They could not take out the respiratory tube as the body had stiffened. They somehow cut the outer portion of the tube and left the remaining portion of it inside the throat."
When contacted, acting dean of the Sassoon hospital Muralidhar Tambe said, “We have conducted at least two workshops with the hospital staffers on this aspect of treating the patients. I think there has been improvement in the behaviour. At the same time, I also feel that there is scope for improvement. We will surely look at it closely and see how we can give better treatment to patients."
A top official of a private hospital in the city said, "We are receiving calls from patients and their relatives on daily basis that they want to shift to our hospital. These patients are already taking treatment at government hospitals. They want to shift for sheer lack of facilities, ill-treatment and uncleanliness. However, we are now allowed to take such patients unless referred by these hospitals according to the protocol."