Lack of separate wards for General Surgery and Orthopaedics departments at Osmania General Hospital (OGH) is putting lives at risk at multiple levels.
Junior doctors of OGH said that patients suspected of COVID-19 are admitted in the General Medicine department. Currently, patients in General Medicine department and pre-operative patients in Orthopaedics department are admitted in the same ward.
When a person with minor fracture is admitted in the ward along with COVID suspects, there is a chance for him and other patients to get the infection if anyone is carrying the virus.
“There have been 20 such cases. Patients who needed surgery for a fracture were negative for coronavirus before admission, and tested positive before surgery. They had to be shifted to Gandhi Hospital for isolation,” said president of Telangana Junior Doctors’ Association (TJUDA), Osmania Medical College unit, Dr. P Rohith.
However, the problem does not end there. Junior doctors from the Orthopaedics department said that when a patient with fracture is not operated on for two to three weeks, the bone starts to grow and fractured ends of the bone do not align leading to malunion.
“We did get such cases of malunion. When we operated on them, we had to break the malunioned bones leading to excess loss of blood and then perform the surgery,” Dr. Rohith said.
Junior doctors from the General Surgery department demanded separate wards, and oxygen ports in Acute Surgical Care (ASC) ward where patients requiring emergency care are admitted.
“Currently, there are four to five oxygen ports in the 15-bed ASC ward but we need ports in all beds. Besides, only three monitors, which display vitals, are available instead of 15,” said a PG student from the General Surgery department Dr. Vaibhav Thobbi.
He said that while there were four wards for male patients and two for female patients admitted under their department, only one each for male and female patients is allotted now. The doctors said that when elective surgeries resume, there will be no space to admit patients.