Hyderabad: Dr P Vinay Kumar is Surgical Gastroenterologist in Osmania General Hospital. In a video, he urges Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao that 500 crore rupees which he is going to spend in constructing a new building for the secretariat, is unnecessary.
Instead, the entire equipment and facilities at the government hospitals can be upgraded which is the need of the hour. It will save the lives of Covid-19 patients who are dying due to different reasons.
Lack of facilities
At Gandhi Hospital, though the doctors are working hard and as efficiently as doctors in a private hospital, still people are hesitant to visit due to the lack of facilities. The death rate in government hospitals is higher than the private hospitals for simple reasons; the lack of facilities and equipment.
If the money is spent to improve the facilities and in procuring the equipment, then people will not only get confidence in the government hospitals but their lives can also be saved.
Dr Kumar says to KCR that if he thinks building a new secretariat building is more important than the lives of the patient and improving the facilities of the government hospitals, he can proceed with his 500 crore-project.
He further adds, today people are going to Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) hospital, because they have confidence in that hospital. It is necessary to bring Gandhi and Osmania Hospitals to that level.
Outside private diagnostic centres, serpentine lines have been noticed as people are standing in the queue to take appointment for the COVID-19 test. People are getting appointments after a couple of days and the report for the test takes another five days.
Whereas, testing Covid-19 and getting its report is a matter of one day. The diagnostic centres are overloaded and also their charges exorbitant–out of the reach of the poor.
The poor people are forced to visit private hospitals for treatment just because of efficient service–though they are not financially well off. They are afraid of government hospitals because they lost confidence in them because of their ineffective service.
Need to regain confidence of people
The confidence of the people has to be regained by improving the services at Gandhi and Osmania Hospitals. Dr Kumar further adds that in Gandhi Hospital, the number of patients are more than the number of beds.
At Osmania hospital, Covid-19 patients are not being admitted, they are being sent to Gandhi Hospital. He insists that Covid-19 patients should also be admitted at Osmania Hospital by providing proper facilities.
He says, at both the hospitals the capacity of beds should be increased as the number of cases are increasing.
Dr Kumar gives an example to KCR that in olden days, kings used to have lavish palaces as their homes and also as their offices. Because, they inherited that qualities of kingship. He gave examples of Falaknuma Palace, Chow Mahalla Palace, etc. He says, trying to live that way is the life of kings. He addressed to KCR and says ‘if you think you are a dorra (king), having a 100 crore Pragati Bhavan to live in, you can spend another 500 crores for your workplace’.