Deaths at Victoria Hospital up for 3 straight years from 2008

Victoria Hospital is reporting an increase in the number of deaths of patients from 2008.

By Sankar C. G.

BANGALORE (Feb. 9)—Insufficient facilities at Victoria Hospital led to an increase in deaths there for three consecutive years from 2008.

Despite hospital authorities’ assurances of better treatment, over 8,000 deaths have been reported at Victoria Hospital since January 2008, with 2,768 deaths in that year, 2,827 in 2009 and about 3,000 in 2010.

Resident Medical Officer (RMO) Kantharaj said that the deaths in the hospital, an average of 10 to 15 every day, are not due to problems in the hospital, but because a majority of the cases they receive from other hospitals are critical and “hopeless.”

“Ninety percent of the patients coming here are poor people who are unable to afford treatments in private hospitals,” he said.

O.S. Siddaraju, the dean of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute said, “It’s a last-referral hospital and if deaths have increased here, it doesn’t mean it is a fault of hospital.”

Patients distressed

People complain of patients at the hospital being sent to other hospitals even when critical as there are insufficient ICUs, beds, oxygen cylinders and other facilities.

Bipin Pande, a citizen who was present at the hospital for his neighbor’s treatment said that he lost his neighbor, Jamaludeen, when he was being transferred to Chinmaya Mission Hospital.

“Jamaludeen was admitted in the hospital with brain hemorrhage, but was asked to be taken to another hospital by doctors,” he said.  “They said that they did not have enough beds and oxygen cylinders.”

Dearth of doctors reported

Several patients complained about shortage of doctors at the hospital.

“My wife was admitted here with a swelling on her shoulder, but as there was no doctor around, she was finally treated by a nurse who gave her some medicines,” said Raju, a patient from K.R. Puram. “That part is bleeding heavily and now needs to be operated on.”

Kantharaj said there were enough doctors but very few nurses and group-D employees (cleaners and other blue-collar workers).

“We have two ICUs, one medical and one surgical, which is sufficient to run the hospital well,” he said. “We are now constructing a new building with 60 ICUs (intensive care units).”

Equipment lacking

On condition of anonymity, a doctor told The SoftCopy that it was not possible to treat and supervise thousands of patients with just two ICUs and 10 ventilators.

“According to medical standards, every patient must have one nurse tending to them, but here, there are only two nurses in the emergency ward to manage to 68 beds,” he said. “We are running short of oxygen cylinder too.”

He also admits that there is a dearth of doctors at the hospital.

Moreover, he also said that asthma patients are bothered by the dust that blows in from the ruined roads that have been in the same condition for over five years and still have not been repaired.

“Leave everything. In this hospital, even the doctors need to get water from outside.”