Gurugram civil hospital refers 10 patients to other hospitals a day

GURUGRAM: Healthcare facilities in the city’s largest government hospital — General Hospital in Civil Lines (Civil hospital) — are in a shambles. This inference can be drawn from the fact it referred nearly 4,000 critical or complicated cases to other hospitals in 2017, that is 10 patients daily. Doctors attribute it to lack of facilities and staff shortage.

In fact, a total of 3,904 patients — 1,152 from the gynaecology ward and 2,752 from the emergency ward — were last year referred by Civil hospital to other hospitals, mainly Delhi’s Safdarjung hospital, according to figures.

This is despite the fact the state government has started various schemes to encourage more women to deliver babies in government hospitals with an aim to improve the mortality rate of both mothers and infants. Moreover, ASHA and Aanganwadi workers have also been roped in to bring more women for medical check-up to hospitals.

While the National Health Mission offers newborns a kit with 16 items such as diapers, dress, mosquito nets etc, the state women and child development department offers supplementary nutrition for pregnant and nursing mothers.

Moreover, with limited number of ambulances available in the hospital, there is an additional pressure on this service too. In fact, three deaths were reported in Gurugram last year as the patients failed to reach Delhi hospitals on time due to delay in getting an ambulance.

They included three-year-old Babu who had to wait for over half-an-hour for an ambulance and died on his way to Delhi, and three-month-old Abel who died while waiting for 20 minutes inside an ambulance which was stuck in the hospital due to a glitch in the engine.

Source told TOI that a couple of years ago, then Gurugram’s deputy commissioner visited the hospital, pretending to be a patient. Doctors at the emergency department diagnosed him with high blood pressure and immediately referred him to Delhi.