Kathmandu, April 22:

Three weeks of the ongoing movement and non-stop violence have left the hospitals overworked and with depleted resources. The limited capacity of hospitals to accommodate injured people, depleting stocks of life saving drugs and the ebbing morale of medical professionals due to long and exhaustive hours spent in the hospitals pose a grim scenario.

Day before yesterday, a nurse fainted while on duty due to a continuous 36-hour shift. The Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH), which has the maximum number of doctors and nurses on duty, is facing the problem too. Around 30 doctors are on duty everyday but the prolonging curfew hours have messed up things. A a doctor at TUTH said it was due to over-exhaustion, tension and the long curfew hours that last up to 25 hours. Generally, the doctors and nurses have to work for a maximum of 12 hours.

Dr Hrishikesh Narayan Shrestha, consulting surgeon at B & B hospital said that the number of hours a doctor and medical team spend on a case depends on the degree of seriousness of a situation. “My medical team spent as long as six hours in the operation theatre to extract rubber bullets from an injured person’s body day before yesterday,” said Dr Shrestha.

Besides, saline water for intravenous administration and life saving drugs such as antibiotic injections Corticosteroid, Metronidazole, which are the most important drugs in treating head injury will be out of stock within a week. “This is because of the curfew and no vehicular movement within or to and from the Valley,” said Dr Kiran Shrestha, Nepal Medical Association general secretary.

“We set up a fund for such a situation to buy life saving drugs, and with the supply of such by the dealers we can carry on for a week. But again, that depends on the number of treatment-seekers,” said Dr Karbir Nath Yogi, associate professor at TUTH. Most of the major hospitals don’t have enough beds in their emergency wards to admit seriously injured persons beyond a certain number.

Kathmandu Model Hospital can accommodate 6 patients in its emergency unit but it has been providing treatment to an average of 50 patients during the last 16 days of general strike. Today, it attended to 160 injured persons. Bir hospital has opened a disaster line to treat injured protesters, which can accommodate 120 persons. It has 22-bed capacity in its emergency unit. Today, 25 persons were brought there. TUTH has 40-bed capacity in its emergency unit. A total of 15 injured persons were admitted to TUTH.

Dr Sarada Pandey, chief of emergency unit, Kathmandu Model Hospital (KMH) said that most of the injured patient today had suffered head injury, suffocation and stampede at Tripureshwor, Bijulibazar and Dillibazar. “We have been accommodating injured people even

in the verandah or wherever space is available,” said Dr Pandey. “Curfew has created problems as most of the referral patients cannot be transferred to other hospitals due to lack of ambulances and free movement.”

Mani Lama, state minister for Health, said that to solve the problem of increasing casualties and injured persons, the government has issued a notice to increase number of doctors and manpower in government hospitals.

In today’s protests, 11 of the 246 persons injured are in a serious condition. Some 160 were taken to KMH. Half of them have head injuries, according to hospital sources. Eight of 37 persons taken to Norvic hospital have sustained rubber bullet and live ammunition injuries. According to the Nepal Medical Association, the police took away five critically injured persons from Norvic hospital. However, it could not be verified.

Around 25 protesters were taken to Bir Hospital. A 5-year child who sustained severe injuries in a stampede at Tripureshwor was referred to Kanti Children Hospital after first aid at HAMS. Injured protesters were taken to Patan hospital, HAMS, Norvic, TUTH, KMH and Bir Hospital.