‘Cardiac arrest’ strikes King George Hospital

Visakhapatnam: Due to its defunct medical equipment, King George Hospital’s Cardiology and Cardio-vascular surgery departments are failing to provide adequate treatment to the high number of poor patients with heart ailments who visit the hospital every month, not only from Visakhapatnam but also from Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and neighbouring districts of Odisha.

The Hemotherm machine, indispensable to conduct open heart surgeries, has been out of order for the last six months, stalling life saving operations like bypass surgery.  

Sources at the hospital said proposals for procuring the machine are pending and patients are forced to go private hospitals.

The sources further added, “Private hospitals have a gala time as all the patients with Arogyasri cards get the surgeries done there.

Each operation costs Rs 1 lakh and six-seven open heart surgeries were conducted every month in KGH before the machine went defunct.”
Poor patients who cannot even afford to stay in the city while their kin remain admitted to the hospital are being deserted by the only multi-speciality government hospital in northern Andhra.

The cardiology wing’s C Arm machine has been out of order for some time and a new machine from Germany is awaited. 

The C Arm has radiographic capabilities like X-ray but consists of an image intensifier which helps in giving images of internal organs with less amount of radiation exposure and is necessary for critical and emergency operation procedures.

Minor fights erupt among the people waiting in queue outside the 2D imaging lab and arguments with the sub staff over the issue of who is being sent in are daily occurrence as there is no proper token system.

A visit to the department will prove that even basic cleanliness is not being maintained.

Ram, who has his 19- year-old cousin admitted to the hospital for an heart ailment, said, “As my cousin is a heart patient I have to bring him from the ward to the cardiology department on a wheelchair for which every time I have to pay the ward boy Rs 100 as a ‘fee’ for the service. Moreover, I was told to get a few important minor tests done in private labs for which I had to shell out Rs 1,500 as it takes a long time to get the results if the tests are done in the hospital.”