Water crisis: Hospitals keep surgeries on hold

With no power back-up at mortuaries in AIIMS and Safdarjung hospitals,frequent power-cuts are making it difficult for doctors in the Forensic Medicine department to keep with the post-mortem cases. “If the power goes off in the middle of a post-mortem examination,we have to open the windows to get some light. The stench becomes unbearable,” a professor of forensic medicine,AIIMS,said.

At Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital in Northeast Delhi,doctors are storing water in containers in operation theatres to wash up,as running water supply has been cut off. “The Jal board supply barely covers 50 percent of our requirement,and we have set up four borewells last year to meet the demand,” Dr Rajpal,medical superintendent at the hospital,said.

At Lok Nayak Hospital in Central Delhi,doctors said they were trying to fix the surgery schedule after taking the paucity of supply into consideration. “The power supply is intermittent,but we are running our operation theatres. When the water supply is low,we reschedule surgeries,as stored water can pose a risk to patients,” a doctor from the anesthesia department said.