Visakhapatnam district has been given 1st rank in maintenance of Covid hospitals. The district under the aegis of Collector Vinay Chand won the top slot by achieving 100 per cent points in 19 parameters. The ranking has been given based on measures like ICU beds, maintenance of oxygen beds, ensuring fast recovery and discharge of admitted patients, reducing mortality rate, submission of daily reports, cleaning of toilets and wards, serving of quality food to patients, frequent visits of doctors and nurses, medical and non-medical staff working effectively in three shifts, operation of help desk and infrastructure in hospitals among others.
According to the government report, the district stood in the first place in Covid care by garnering a total 2,500 points under 19 parameters. But does this ranking reflect the ground reality in the district?
The situation in Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS) is anything but rosy as the state government wants us to believe. Death stalks the institute. The Premises reverberates with cries and groans of patients and their relatives. Families are kept in dark and have no clue about the fate of their loved ones in the hospital. Kin are not informed as soon as the patient dies. No information on the number of doctors on shift is available. This is the stark reality at VIMS which is the only major Covid hospital for four districts of East Godavari, Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam.
Senior officials holding reviews and issuing directions for recruitment of adequate staff has become a routine for the last three months. The hospital has no adequate facilities to preserve dead bodies. Unhygienic conditions, no procedure to update relatives on the condition of patients and poor quality of food are among the slew of allegations VIMS is facing.
There has been no change despite district minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao himself holding many reviews and expressing displeasure over the plight of the hospital. YSRCP MP V Vijayasai Reddy once visited the hospital and certified that everything was in order in the hospital, but when Minister Muttamsetti visited the hospital a few days later, he had to face the protests from the kin of the patients. It is only recently that authorities are taking steps to improve conditions in terms of beds and oxygen supply.
Worse in other districts?
If VIMS was adjudged the best hospital despite the dreadful problems patients have to face, imagine the condition of hospitals in other districts which have not made the ranking. Many patients are calling the ranking exercise as ‘dubious’ and a vain effort to build PR for the government. The only silver lining is that Visakha officials have learnt their lessons from past failures and are taking corrective steps to a certain extent.
