Goa Medical College;Desperately seeking resuscitation

Desperately seeking resuscitation
At GMC, heal on own Hundreds use their services everyday, but with equipment and staff stretched to breaking, Goa’s govt hospitals are...
Preetu Nair | TNN

Panaji: Irrespective of the ailment, being a patient at the Bambolimbased Goa Medical College and Hospital, commonly called the GMC, is painful indeed.
Take this list of woes told to TOI by patients past and present:
If you are to be operated, you may have to purchase gloves and disposable syringes for the doctors who will operate on you. Once operated, if you are shifted to a general ward, you run the risk of contracting infections. If you opt for the private ward instead, where you pay about Rs 450 a day, you run the risk of developing convulsions due to the faulty oxygen supply.
Things are no better in the Intensive Coronary Care Unit (ICCU). The dysfunctional air conditioning has forced patients to carry their own table fans in the recent past.
As for medical procedures such as X-rays, CT scans and echocardiography (Echo), they are either short stocked (X-ray films) or non-functional, forcing patients to throng to private practitioners. In the case of procuring a CT scan the patient has to travel to Margao-based Hospicio hospital.There’s more. Despite the budget allocation for medicines being increased from Rs 200 lakh in 2003-04 to Rs 500 lakh in 2006-07, there is a shortage at the GMC pharmacy. And the ambulances, presumably well equipped, have neither wheelchairs nor stretchers, forcing patients brought in to be carried.
To top it all, ill-maintained wards, cobwebs, soiled beds, unclean toilets and bathrooms, garbage scattered around the premises and sometimes in the wards, broken window panes... the list is endless.
“My mother, who had to undergo a back surgery, was infected with bed sores in the general ward and we had to shift her to a private ward to escape any kind of infection,” said Sarla Samant (Name changed on request).
Things were no better in the more expensive ward. “Mom suffered a terrible convulsion and was in urgent need of oxygen, but the central oxygen supply, which comes via the pipes to all the rooms, was not working and the oxygen cylinder that was brought was found to be leaking and the manometer was faulty,” said Samant.
Horrified, Samant said, “Even basic facilities are missing. In the wards, taps leak. In private rooms there are no night lamps. And dirty linen is used for patients. Instead of beautifying the hospital, authorities should look at fulfilling these basic medical facilities,” she added.
With primary and secondary health care facilities failing in Goa, the burden falls on GMC, said hospital authorities. While there are 26 government hospitals in the state, with a collective bed capacity of 2,454 beds, about 1,030 beds are at the GMC alone. Official figures show a 1:636 doctor-patient ratio at GMC, but doctors said the pressures on them were huge.
“Not only is there a lack of drugs, basic amenities like gloves and cotton is not available in the surgery ward, and patients are asked to purchase these,” said doctors. A forensic doctor added, “Since the last two months, we don’t have scalpel blades and we’ve had to purchase these from the pharmacy on an almost daily basis.”
The Good
All services available at one hospital Economical Qualified doctors and nurses Superspeciality treatment available
The Bad
No gloves Untidy bedsheets, dirty corridors Dysfunctional machines Delay in operations

June 21, 2008, The Times of India, Goa edition