Ongole: Casualty ward turns coronavirus hub

Ongole: The casualty ward in the Government General Hospital (GGH) here posing a serious risk to normal patients as it treats Covid-19 patients too in close proximity.

The ward is where patients with emergencies, victims of the accidents and other medico legal cases are treated. The GGH is one of the Covid hospitals in the state. Though the capacity of the hospital is 500 beds, owing to rising number of cases, 850 patients are getting treatment here.

This pressure for beds is forcing the authorities to divert other wards to Covid treatment. Seriously ill Covid patients who require oxygen support, are being allotted the left side beds in casualty ward while the victims of accidents, snake bites, dog bites, or those consumed poison and other medico-legal cases are allotted the right side beds along with their attendants.

These patients do not know that they are just inhaling the air, possibly containing the coronavirus exhaled by the patients in the same ward.

When tracing the contacts, the officials are neglecting to categorise the patients in the casualty ward into primary or secondary or at least tertiary contacts. Though the people in the casualty, the patients or the attendants, are also complaining of infections of coronavirus, the hospital administration is not able to make separate arrangements.

Doctors and nurses working without any da off complain of poor facilities. A senior doctor working in the casualty ward said that they have to use one mask for three days, which is not advisable and make them exposed to coronavirus. The staff complain that the sanitiser offered to them is of cheap quality with an unusual smell which cannot be used often.

While the experts are warning spread of virus through aerosols and advising proper disposal of used facemasks, the hospital staff is dumping the food waste and medical waste from the Covid wards near the OP registration wing, exposing common people as well as doctors and nurses to danger.

Though exact number of infections in hospital is not available, nearly 10 doctors and 30 nurses are reportedly suffering from Covid now.

GGH Ongole superintendent Dr Diguvinti Sriramulu told The Hans India that the contractor dumped the medical waste near the OP wing, as there is no special arrangements to store them.

"We requested the Ongole Municipal Corporation to supply bins for the food waste and are waiting for them. We are trying to treat about 1,000 Covid patients in the hospital with a capacity of 500 beds and giving priority to saving the seriously ill by putting them on oxygen at casualty ward when they arrive," he said.

The superintendent said rather than normal patients it was the medical personnel who were being exposed to the virus due to lack of infrastructure. He said the issue has been discussed with the district collector and they were trying to arrange oxygen beds at the gynaecology ward so that the Covid patients with breathing problems would be shifted there from casualty ward.