Hyderabad: Osmania OTs on the blink, patients hit hard

HYDERABAD: After a month of coping with pain caused by hernia, Mohd Kareem Khan was referred to the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) from the Mancheriyal district hospital for a surgery a fortnight back. He has since made two rounds to the OGH, only to be turned away with a strip of painkillers.
Like him, at least 20 patients have been declined service at the general surgery department while 25 patients who required orthopaedic surgical intervention were given conservative management and packed off. With operation theatres in the orthopaedic and general surgery departments of the hospital not functioning for nearly two months, many patients have been only put on painkillers and asked to wait for a future date.
Although emergency surgical theatres are operational in the departments, majority of the patients requiring surgeries fall under the non-emergency or elective category.
Several departments being shifted due to flooding in the hospital has also added to the menace in the only only tertiary care centre of the government sector. No alternative arrangements were also made following the shifting. The issue has been represented twice in front of the director of medical education by the Osmania Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association.
The junior doctors have threatened to boycott their services if an alternate arrangement is not made. Following the threat, an emergency meeting was held by hospital superintendent.
“As there is no admission for elective surgeries in the general surgery department or orthopaedic department, we are not able to take IC Fracture Femur cases. We have to usually do a hemiarthroplasty but now, we are only applying a cast, which makes the patient bed-ridden,” said Dr P Rohith, the president of the junior doctors’ association.
“This results in the patients frequently quarrelling with the doctors since they also do not have any other place to do. The situation in OGH, which serves lakh of poor patients, is very disappointing. Despite us making representations, nothing has moved agead. Although we do not want to boycott services during the ongoing pandemic, the hospital’s failure in making alternative arragements is a loss to the patients only,” added Rohith.
Meanwhile, the hospital superintendent Dr B Nagender met the DME over the issue on Wednesday. “We will make some arrangements by the end of the week in the Quli Qutub building by clubbing OT facilities for super-speciality departments,” the official said.