Cancer Ward

Orissa does not have an enviable health profile, with its maternal and infant mortality rates topping the charts among the various states ...

Orissa does not have an enviable health profile, with its maternal and infant mortality rates topping the charts among the various states in the country. Behind such deaths lie stories of chronic impoverishment and illiteracy, true, but they are also grim pointers to another kind of poverty that of institutionalised healthcare. Last week8217;s tragic developments at Cuttack8217;s best known institution of its kind, the SCB Medical College and Hospital, which saw three new mothers die after being administered ostensibly contaminated transfusion fluids, only confirmed the fact that healthcare in the state borders on the primitive.

What was particularly disturbing was the lack of alertness on the part of the hospital authorities. After the first woman had developed rigour upon being administered the drip, it needed two more, utterly unnecessary, deaths before any action was taken to withdraw the bottles of fluid suspected to be contaminated.

But the malady of hospital bungling is by no means confined to Orissa or, for that matter, to government-run establishments. At the Sheth Mangaldas Laxmichand Vaduwala Charitable Eye Hospital in Vadodara recently, 14 patients who had undergone cataract operations developed serious eye infections, with four of them losing their operated eye, because of an inexplicable infection. Apart from being an eloquent comment on the callousness of doctors and auxiliary medical personnel, incidents of this kind point to a distressingly poor level of hospital administration.

At every level, from ensuring that wards are kept in antiseptic conditions to the disposal of highly infectious hospital wastes, the same callousness prevails. In a properly run hospital, for instance, biomedical waste is meant to be classified into four groups human tissue, general waste, infectious waste and plastic and metal objects and then disposed of according to specific guidelines.

The reality, however, is that they are invariably dumped in open piles close to hospital premises creating one big toxic mess. Given this record, it is really no surprise that hospitals, the country8217;s halls of healing, are themselves potent sources of infection. While those who can afford to, are increasingly opting to patronise the enclaves of professionalised, and prohibitively expensive, medical care that are available, it is the voiceless poor who are left to manage as best they might in abysmal conditions. The three women who died because of the unhygienic environs of the Cuttack hospital were all, not surprisingly, poor village women.

The problem has been long recognised but very little has been done about it. In the Ninth Five Year Plan document, there is a whole paragraph devoted to voicing concern over the 8220;increasing incidence of hospital-acquired infections and accidental infection8221;. The document promises that the state will, during the Ninth Plan period ie, 1997-2002 pay due attention and provide adequate funding for infection control and waste management. But, as always, the reality defies pious intentions.