Saline infusion in the open under umbrella

Vikarabad: One look at the Mission Hospital resembles a picnic that is underway with people sitting under picnic umbrellas, but as one gets closer, reality dawns. Thanks to lack of beds, patients are administered saline outside in every possible place available.

The district has been awash with fever cases and the scourge of dengue does not seem to recede. The region is in the grip of fevers such as viral and typhoid and the hospitals in the town are crowded with the patients.

Poor people in the region rush to government hospital for treatment. Keeping the heavy crowds in the mind, middle class and others visit private hospitals. Mission Hospital, a private hospital has been witnessing a massive number of visitors especially for dengue treatment.

Dr Avinash, the superintendent of the hospital, says on an average they deal with 120 to 150 dengue cases every day. Unable to grapple with overburden of patients, the hospital has been adopting different methods. All wards in the hospital are full. The patients are forced to sit wherever the place is available and being administered fluids.

The treatment has gone to the extent that whoever comes in four-wheeler, the vehicle becomes their treatment bed. As the stands for holding the fluid bottles are unavailable, paramedics are hanging the bottles to the trees and even picnic umbrella stands are also holding the fluid bottles.

These umbrellas cover tables and chair from rain and shine. Now patients are being treated while they are sitting in those chairs, of course, with the stand holding the fluid bottles.

Surprisingly, there is no crowd at the government hospital. Patients who visited the Mission Hospital said that doctors at government hospital are referring the cases to Hyderabad.