mid-day editorial: Hospitals can't come crashing down on patients

We go to hospitals to heal, but evidently, there seemed to be more harm at KEM hospital on Wednesday. A year after a part of a newly constructed column came down on a patient at this hospital, the plaster and ceiling came crashing down on at the hospital's dialysis department located on the second floor.

The hospital must consider itself lucky that two patients who were admitted for dialysis at the civic-run hospital suffered only minor injuries. Now, a part of the dialysis unit has been shifted elsewhere while repairs go on.

It is unacceptable that a medical facility suffers crashes and collapses like this. The administration and civic authorities need to ensure regular repairs and maintenance of the building. If there is red tape or other problems holding up timely repairs, a solution has to be found in double quick time.

Given the vulnerable state that patients are in, and the amount of human traffic at BMC hospitals, it is important that the facility and equipment are in top condition. We are being assured that repairs to the ceiling have started and will be finished in four days. It will be counterproductive though, if repairs are substandard or shoddy.

Ensure good quality of work, otherwise this becomes an exercise in wasting time and money. It also poses a danger to patients once again. Unless there is 100 per cent satisfaction about the job done, it is not advisable to shift patients back to the old unit.

We need much more accountability and better answers from those who run these hospitals, rather than the usual slapdash dismissal of queries or stony silence after such incidents. This episode should not be waved off as minor. It needs to be treated with the seriousness and gravity it warrants.

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