NEW DELHI, January 9: It has taken yet another disaster in Delhi to show how inadequate emergency facilities are at hospitals.Doctors and the medical staff at the Jai Prakash hospital focused their attention on the chief minister, the city government top brass and other central government officials who rushed hours after the blast to ``express sympathies''.Victims lay neglected as the medical staff stood in attendance of the VIPs. And to hog the limelight Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and his cabinet colleagues stood outside the emergency entrance of the hospital giving long lectures on the incompetence of the police.``We were sitting in the parking lot at the income tax building when there was a deafening blast. We rushed out to see people lying injured on the road. I rushed back got my car and with other people rushed the victims to the hospital,'' Satpal, a driver working at the income tax department said.``At the hospital they just did not know what to do with the victims. The people and the police were rushing in the victims in large numbers. They were just bundled on the floor,'' he added.Satish Kumar, one of the injured echoed. ``The hospital staff floundered and kept running creating more panic. Though I was not injured seriously they picked me first leaving the more serious ones out. When I protested a guard told me to either get a bandage done or disappear,'' he said.The emergency ward was too cramped the the help at hand was initially inadequate. And then the chief minister created more chaos. Sahib Singh flanked by his cabinet colleagues including transport minister Rajender Gupta and health minister Dr Harshvardhan came to the hospital. They were surrounded by their hangers-on and their Personal Security Officers (PSO).They kept getting in and out of the emergency ward talking to the victims. They were followed by senior officials of the Income Tax Department, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the health department and even the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.The VIPswere all trying to talk to the victims even before they received treatment. And the doctors every time turned around to talk to the VIPs leaving the hapless injured groaning.The police too added to the chaos. They grilled the injured, asking for clues, descriptions of the perpetrators of the blast. ``I want my son,'' screamed a victim as doctors plastered his fractured leg.And just outside the emergency ward anxious relatives desperate sought information about the well being of their injured kin only to be ticked off not only by the police but also by the hospital staff. This situation prevailed for almost three hours after the incident till an angry relative rushed to Sahib Singh as he held his ``durbar'' outside the emergency ward. ``Will you stop your lecture and please see that we get information of our relatives,'' he screamed.Sahib Singh then ordered one of the officers to ensure that a list was pasted on the wall immediately. It was then that the police announced the list of injured. But till past 6.00 p.m. neither the doctors nor the hospital staff were able to tell the relatives of the injured their condition. ``We don't know. Do not bother us,'' was the general refrain.The hospital security staff had to later ask government officials to leave the emergency ward and let doctors work. This was more than four hours after the incident that the hospital finally woke up to the emergency and took measures to treat the victims.
