A day after rain water from storm water drains flooded Osmania General Hospital (OGH)’s in-patient (IP) ward, doctors and staff of the hospital said that water might stagnate in the block again if it rained heavily. They said that lives of patients were at stake because of the appalling unhygienic conditions.

COVID-19 spreads through droplets, and droplets from an infected person might spread faster if unhygienic conditions persist throughout the monsoon, they said. Currently, COVID-19 suspects are admitted to the hospital’s out-patient (OP) block.

While rain water flowed into the IP ward on Monday, it gushed into the building on Wednesday. The situation was however, addressed by Thursday morning.

A section of the General Medicine department is located on the ground floor of the IP building. The Intermediate Care unit too is on the ground floor. Besides, three operation theatres (OT) are on this building constructed in 1917. Patients who need emergency surgeries such as amputation of body parts due to gangrene, stitching of perforations in body, and other operations, are taken to OTs.

In-charge superintendent of the hospital R. Pandu Naik said that around 65 in-patients in General Medicine ward, and Intermediate Care unit, were shifted to safe premises. “They were shifted to the Quli Qutb Shah block. Some more patients would be shifted shortly,” Dr. Naik said.

However, OTs continued to function there. “If rainwater stagnates in the building again, patients have to be taken on stretchers and wheelchairs in that murky water,” a doctor who performs surgeries there said. Dr. Naik said that alternate OTs would be identified soon.

“There is another entrance to the hospital. But it is a roundabout way. In any case, water usually flows into the ground floor when it rains. We would not be left with any other option but walk in that water to reach the OTs,” the doctor said.

While operations were performed in the OP block, the OTs in the IP block were used for the last five days.

Sources in the hospital said that the GHMC was asked to address the issue related to storm water lines that lie underground the hospital.