Hyderabad: 50% drop in OP numbers at Gandhi Hospital

Musheerabad: Gandhi Hospital which is always full chock-a-block, for once is seen without teeming crowds these days – Thanks to the coronavirus scare, outpatients have refrained from visiting hospital in large numbers.

Dr M Raja Rao, the working superintendent at Gandhi Hospital said, "Coronavirus treatment has impacted the out-patient footfall considerably, the numbers started to dip after the news of the facility housing the first infected case in the state came out."

"Gandhi Hospital is one of the nodal centers for treatment in the state, every day witnesses around 2,500 to 3,000 patients coming with all kinds of illness in the OP block. However, the footfalls have dipped to 50 per cent in the last one week," he added further.

Meanwhile, the Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) has requested the government to shift the isolation ward from Gandhi. Lohit Reddy, president of the Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) at Gandhi Hospital, said, "The facility has many specialties under one roof in a single building, with all these wards and the isolation ward being in the same building will increase the chances of the patients being exposed to the virus. So, we requested isolation at a better place separately for corona."

"Every day at a time we have around 10,000 people in and around Gandhi Hospital. How can the facility set up an isolation ward in such a heavily populated area where the chance of exposure to the virus is more. The hospital staff, students, patients, and their attendants are at risk," he adds further.