Services at the Government Medical College Hospital (MCH), Kozhikode, are yet to be resumed fully and COVID-19-related stigma is keeping a large number of people away too.
Sources said that in-patient facilities were yet to restart for cancer patients though outpatient consultation and chemotherapy sessions were back on track now. The number of angioplasty surgeries at the superspecialty section was down to one or two a day from 20-25 per day earlier. Surgeries and trauma care treatment too had not been resumed fully. The department of general medicine, which received a large chunk of OP patients and 50% of those from the casualty ward normally, had allotted four of their 11 wards for COVID-19 treatment. Though they had been allotted a couple of wards from other departments, the gap was yet to be filled, the sources said.
The MCH as well as the Government General Hospital are the only health facilities in the government sector in Kozhikode district that offer COVID-19 treatment now. Sources at the MCH told The Hindu that though the government was roping in more private hospitals in the fight against the pandemic, many were averse to approaching them for treatment considering the high cost.
Less than 1,000 cases
However, people who need non-COVID critical care treatment, many from poor families, are not keen on coming to the MCH because they are scared of being infected. “Patients who are referred from other hospitals to the MCH are reported to have said they did not wish to come here for fear of getting infected,” a senior doctor said. The outpatient department at the hospital, which used to see around 3,000 cases a day earlier, are not even recording 1,000 these days. The department of oncology and casualty wards may be exceptions.
The doctor said that more government hospitals needed to be utilised for COVID-19 treatment so that the process could be decentralised. Steps should also be taken to remove the stigma from the minds of the people, he said.