Visakhapatnam: VIMS stares at a host of multiple tasks

Visakhapatnam: Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), which is designated as state Covid hospital grapples with a host of multiple challenges.

From the availability of beds to the shortage of sanitary staff and the maintenance of washrooms, several complaints trickle in from the patients and their family members arriving from Visakhapatnam, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam and East Godavari districts.

Absence of adequate sanitary staff is leaving an impact on the hygiene maintenance of the premises. Even if the management wants to pull it off with the staff available, not many are able to make it to the duty, given their age factor and shift demands.

With pressure mounting on the existing doctors, nursing staff and sanitary personnel, some of them are falling prey to health issues. As a result, the patients in the hospital do not have access to basic amenities such as drinking water and decent washrooms. Very recently, one of the old patients fell off the bed in the ward. But it took a while for the staff to put her back on the bed. A video on the negligence of the hospital staff went viral on social media.

Another major issue faced by the patients is that the families, who lost their loved ones to Covid-19 are not being informed on time.

When Tourism Minister Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao paid a visit to VIMS, a woman accosted him and expressed anguish over the fact that information regarding her husband's death reached her late. Like her, several patients communicated similar complaints. In order to overcome this hurdle, the hospital management is collecting patients' relatives contact numbers as well.

Currently, shortage of staff is one of the main challenges, the 548-bedded hospital grapples with. "We have sufficient staff for 100 patients. But with a sudden surge of coronavirus cases, we have 400-odd patients at present getting treated at the hospital. With the commencement of the recruitment exercise, hope the situation will improve in a week," explains K Satya Vara Prasad, VIMS director.

According to reliable sources, though district officials intend to recruit sufficient staff, not many look forward to taking up the temporary post that too at the cost of their health. This is another setback faced by the hospital management despite the permission sought to recruit doctors.

This apart, on an average, 30 deaths report from the four districts a day. But with non-availability of slots at electric crematorium, safeguarding the bodies till then is another problem the hospital has to look into.

Given the rise in coronavirus cases, there is a need to look into the larger picture of the issues at VIMS and consider concrete steps to sort them out at the earliest.