Rajbiraj, August 22

Four ventilators are lying idle due to lack of manpower to operate them at Gajendra Narayan Singh Hospital of Rajbiraj in Saptari. Patients suffering from COVID and other chronic diseases have been facing problems due to lack of ventilator services.

The ventilators and ICU equipment, among other medical equipment were provided to the health facility by the federal government. The hospital has not been able to bring those equipment into use due to lack of infrastructure and required manpower.

The isolation centre with 178 beds, which is the biggest facility of its kind in the country, established at Saikrishna Medical College, lacked ventilators. The patients with chronic diseases and COVID infected have been dying due to lack of ventilators and ICU services.

As many as five persons died from COVID-19 in the district till date. Families of the deceased have complained that they had lost their members due to lack of ventilators and ICU services.

Patients have been compelled to go to other health facilities from one of the oldest hospitals, Gajendra Narayan Singh Hospital, due to lack of necessary experts and equipment. Chronic patients, who visit the hospital have been referred to other health facilities.

Civil Society, Saptari, Chairman Than Singh Bhansali said it was unfortunate that available equipment could not be brought into operation due to lack of experts at the hospital.

Medical Superintendent at the hospital Dr Ranjit Jha said they were compelled to refer the patients to other health facilities after the ventilators and ICU equipment in the hospital could not be brought into use due to lack of technical manpower. “Treatment of coronavirus patients is possible here if infrastructure and manpower are available,” he said.

Dr Jha said he had been requesting the local, provincial and federal governments to manage required infrastructure and manpower. Locals have been irked by the delay in bringing the ICU and ventilator services into operation.

They have been demanding that the much required manpower should be arranged, at the earliest.

A version of this article appears in e-paper on August 23, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.