Up on toes, LD hospital catering to huge patient rush

PA system used to call doctors, attendants

Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Aug 22: With almost every service coming to a grinding halt in Kashmir, the lone maternity care hospital of the Valley Lalla Ded ((LD) Hospital in Srinagar has so far remained on toes in providing the health care services to the people thronging from various districts.
As the peripheral healthcare services, especially the services of maternity care, are low, with an add-on factor of the absence of communication, such patients are directly referred to Srinagar. The referrals, with the result, have increased the patient load on the hospital.
“The admissions to the hospital normally used to be 100 or 110 in 24 hours, now it has gone up to 130 or 140 in 24 hours; the situation around has surely increased the rush at the hospital,” Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr Shabir Siddiqui told Excelsior.
Further, while the communication was down even at the hospital before the landlines were, according to the Government, restored, the hospital has put in service the announcements that are made on loudspeakers in order to mitigate with the communication breakdown.
If a doctor is needed in any of the critical sections of the hospital, the announcements are made on the loudspeakers, asking the particular doctor to report to the announced spot. The loudspeakers are also used to call up the attendants of the patients who are admitted in the labour room of the hospital.
An attendant told Excelsior that they are called up, if anything is needed via the announcements made through the loudspeakers. The announcements are currently the only line of communication between the hospital and the attendants.
“Normally, they would inform our people outside the labour room, who would then call men waiting outside, now the communication is down, there is no way to get in touch with men waiting outside; in order to do that, they make announcements on the loudspeakers and we get to know about it,” said Muhammad Shafi whose wife was inside the labour room.
The loudspeakers were shut by the government after the reports that there was no need of having them at the first place at the hospitals; however, the hospital administration has started the announcements all over again in order to deal with the situation which is unprecedented.
With regard to the movement of patients, the hospital has also put in a mechanism to deal with it. The vehicles that are coming from various districts are made to wait and the patients belonging to that district are made to travel in those vehicles.
“Say for example, a patient from Kupwara has been discharged from the hospital, but does not have any sort of transport to reach destination; what we do is to make the hospital vehicle(s) from Kupwara-that are at the hospital-to wait and we make those vehicles available to discharged patients,” said security guard at the hospital.
Amid communication clampdown, calling the doctor on-call is also a challenging job. Normally, they would call up the concerned doctor and then send in a vehicle to get them to the hospital.
“But currently what we do is that, we are already aware of all those doctors who are on-call, instead of calling them, we send in a vehicle and then get the concerned doctor to the hospital,” a doctor working at LD said, adding that doing so is often quite challenging.
Another doctor said that if the situation is too sensitive and the patient need immediate attention of a doctor, “we prefer to take the patient to the hospital where the doctor on-call is stationed,” he said.

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