Getting emergency care still a challenge at Anantapur GGH
A patient waits for his turn at the GGH in Anantapur outside the casuality.
Anantapur-Sathya Sai: Despite the bifurcation of Anantapur district into two districts, the Government General Hospital (GGH) still caters to the twin districts as the new district of Sathya Sai does not have a district headquarters hospital. So, this is adding to the woes of the ailing hospital with multiple challenges.
Patients come to the hospital from 63 mandals especially in times of emergencies. For many emergency patients, the hour of their arrival at the hospital could be the golden hour when patients badly need urgent treatment. Patients guardians complain that a lot of time is being wasted on completing patient's admission formalities even for giving first aid to those who come up with cardiac problems that require treatment in the golden hour.
The formalities include going for OP ticket, then comes clinical tests like x-ray, blood tests or scanning, requesting for stretcher, saline bottle administering and waiting for test results and all these take 2-3 hours before they are actually admitted in the hospital and commence treatment.
Normally, the casuality medical officer is supposed to examine the emergency patient but in most cases the PG students handle the cases as also the trainee nurses. Despite the availability of 15 casuality medical officers, they seemed to be lethargic in attending to emergency cases and instead PG students are sent to attend the cases.
Despite the implementation of National Rural Health Mission over a period of 15 years, the public health system in the country in general and in the district continues to face formidable challenges.
There is shortage of MRI, CT scan, X-ray, ultrasound machine etc. Patient in critical conditions are made to wait for several months and the condition in the government hospitals is very critical.
The dialysis centre at the Government General Hospital (GGH), which is providing free treatment to several poor patients for three years, is on the verge of closure due to lack of funds. There are several renal patients from the city and other taluks are being treated at the dialysis centre. Dialysis unit is facing problem with poor supply of medical equipment like dialister, tubes, gloves and others. The medical equipment too is not functioning properly. Diagnostic equipment including X-ray and radiography transferred from various PHCs, was not replaced.