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Arteev Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, January 30
Call it lack of political will or red tape to make the expansion plan a reality, the state’s oldest health institution — Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital in Jammu — is bursting at the seams.
Patients, especially pregnant women and ailing children, are forced to share beds.
The 750-bedded SMGS Hospital, which is the lone maternity and children tertiary care facility in the Jammu region, has 240 beds for gynae and obstetrics patients, 400 beds in the paediatrics block, 70 beds in the ENT block and 40 beds in dermatology.
Official sources said the hospital management was struggling to deal with a large influx of patients due to two major reasons — lack of adequate beds in the labour room and general wards of the gynaecology and paediatrics blocks and shortage of parking space.
“Our political leadership never bothers to seriously take up the expansion plans, which are facing legal and administrative impediments. It has made the situation chaotic in the hospital. The hospital lacks infrastructure. The hospital labour room has 48 beds but the number of patients admitted is between 130 and 140 each day,” sources said.
The sources said doctors and paramedical staff find it difficult to handle the delivery cases amid such chaos as two or three women share a single bed at a time when they are in ‘unbearable’ pain.
Due to space crunch, the hospital is forced to discharge women, who deliver through a Caesarean section, after 3-4 days, when they should stay in the hospital at least for seven days.
Around 1,600 patients visit the out-patients department of the hospital every day, while around 70-80 deliveries take place on any given day.
A patient alleged that senior doctors and consultants spent less time at the hospital. “They prefer to spend more time at their private clinics, even drawing patients from the hospital.”
Medical Superintendent, SMGS Hospital, Dr Manoj Chalotra said: “Under the expansion plan, we have proposed construction of a 275-bedded maternity block but it is facing impediments due to some litigations. The space crunch, overcrowding of vehicles and patients and a large number of attendants make it difficult for us to handle things with ease.”
“On an average, 70-80 deliveries take place in the hospital every day and it is a fact that women and children share beds. The new maternity block will solve the problem,” he said. “It is my priority to have a multi-storey parking for which a detailed project report has been prepared. We also are working on a proposal to have a 100-bedded sarai.”
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