Day 2: Patients suffer as resident docs bunk work

As the mass bunk by Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) entered its second day, patients continued to suffer and on-duty doctors desperately tried to make up for less staff. Several surgeries were postponed and patients requiring urgent surgeries were referred to state-run JJ Hospital from civic-run hospitals. Seeing the situation, a few resident doctors and members of MARD continued to work on humanitarian grounds despite the ongoing protest.

With resident doctors not turning up for work, several patients were turned away yesterday. File pic

Sion Hospital
Sheela Dhuru (65) was admitted to the Sion Hospital with an injured leg and broken thighbone in the orthopedic ward a week ago. A Dharavi resident, Dhuru's surgery was scheduled for Tuesday. However, being the first day of the resident doctors' indefinite mass bunk, the surgery was postponed. "Except for the senior doctor who visits the ward twice-a-day, there is no one who can take proper care of Sheela who is in pain and discomfort. Since yesterday, several patients who needed to be admitted were turned away to other hospitals due to lack of sufficient staff," said Supriya Dhuru, a relative.

Out of the 520 resident doctors in Sion Hospital, only 51 were working yesterday. Sion Hospital, which conducts at least five to 10 surgeries a day in the orthopedic department, conducted only one emergency operation on the second day of the indefinite mass bunk. "We are discharging patients from the wards now as we don't have sufficient manpower to attend to them. We provided basic treatment to several patients and referred them to JJ hospital or a private hospital for further treatment," said a senior doctor from the orthopedic ward.

"164 patients were treated in the emergency department of the hospital, while 37 patients were treated in the out-patient department (OPD). We are now able to conduct only emergency surgeries in the hospital, as it is difficult to look after several patients post the operation without the help of resident doctors. Hence, only 10 operations were conducted in the hospital on Wednesday," said Dr Avinash Supe, dean of Sion hospital.

KEM Hospital
Several patients were turned away from the hospital and referred to other major hospitals in the city yesterday. Dr Preeti Mehta, acting dean of KEM hospital, said that the hospital had seen 43 admissions and 661 patients treated in the OPD, as compared to 5,500 patients in OPD and 250 admissions that it handles per day. "Around 64 emergency surgeries were done, of which 37 surgeries were major and 27 were minor. In the maternity ward, around 27 deliveries were performed out of which 14 were normal deliveries," added Dr Mehta.u00a0