Patients piqued over irregular change of bedsheets

Hyderabad: Patients at Gandhi Hospital are seeing red as the much-publicised pink and white bedsheets that were to be used on alternate days is not being followed. As per the display board at the hospital, pink bedsheet should have been used on Tuesday (June 6) but one could see the soiled white bed sheets as seen in the photo.

White and pink bed sheets are meant for the wards, dark blue for intensive care units and sky blue for doctors’ room. A senior nurse at the Orthopedic Unit 1 said, “The bed strength is 80 and on an average we have 40-50 occupancy. We are given two sets of bed sheets but there is a delay at the dhobi who has to deliver the bedsheets within a day. Since he is not able to cope with the work, we are unable to change the sheets.” She added, “We have requested for another set and if we get it, we would be able to change the bed sheets every day.”

At the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre too, bed sheets were not changed regularly. A seven-month-old baby was admitted to the ward. When quizzed, Gandhi Hospital RMO Dr Muralidhar Gupta said, “It was basically a research centre and only a handful of cases come to us.” Last month on May 8, as many as 51,998 bedsheets were distributed for 10,737 beds.

There are 20,000 beds in government hospitals. The government introduced the multi-colour bedsheets to ensure daily change of bed sheets to intensify cleanliness and control infections. Shankar Marepalli from Mahbubnagar whose wife gave birth to twins on June 2 said, “The bed sheets were not changed. We are unaware about the new development that everyday a fresh bed sheet would be changed. It sounds good but it is not happening.”

By T P Venu