Cyclone hit Raigad hospital functions without electricity for a week as MSEDCL delays restoring connection; critical patients asked to leave at night and return next morning to continue treatment
Dr Siddhartha Patil and his wife Dr Vaishnavi Patil at their multi-speciality Mangla Nursing Home and Cancer Hospital, on the Mumbai Goa Highway. Pics/Atul Kamble
Pen: Patients at Pen-s multi-speciality Mangla Nursing Home and Cancer Hospital, on the Mumbai Goa Highway, over the last one week have been asked to go home and return the next day for treatment as the hospital had lost its electricity connection due to the impact of Cyclone Nisarga and the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited MSEDCL hasn-t been prompt in restoring it.
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Run by Dr Siddhartha Patil and his wife Dr Vaishnavi Patil, the hospital-s supply snapped on June 3 and took a week to be restored. "On June 4, I contacted the MSEDCL engineer and lineman on ground to restore the power and they assured me that it would be resolved in 48 hours. A cement electric pole was brought to the site on June 5 but it was not erected that day," says Dr Siddhartha. He says that the next day, the engineer assured him that work would be done by the by evening, but when that too didn-t happen, the doctor contacted the local police officer, Dy SP Nitin Jadhav, who called up the engineer and told him to restore power as hospitals come under essential services.
"To my utter surprise, power was restored at a corporator-s house which is just three houses away from my hospital," Dr Patil underlines. "The engineer and lineman told me to get a service wire if I was in a hurry. Obviously, a doctor will be in a hurry if four patients are battling for life on their hospital bed," he says.
Sanjeevani Koli, 25, Madhuri Patil, 27, Namrata Ramdharne, 46, and Atharva Samjiskar, 16, had been admitted to the hospital post the cyclone. They had come from areas in Alibaug and Pen. "They should have been on bed rest as Koli suffers from suspected lymphoma, Patil has diabetic ketoacidosis, Ramdharne suffers from cervical spondylitis and Samjiskar has appendicitis," says Dr Vaishnavi. Samjiskar had to go home and return to the hospital with the vein flow in his hand.
"Since there was no power, these patients had to return home after day-long treatment at the hospital and come back the next morning. I-m shamed that those advised bed rest had to make a 40km journey," she says. "The condition of the cervical spondylitis patient has worsened due to the road travel," adds Dr Vaishnavi.
"Patil was brought to our hospital in an unconscious state as she is highly diabetic. We gave her an IV insulin and ICU care was required but we could not provide this as there was no power and the backup had also drained out. We had been using manual method to bring relief to her body. Every drop of insulin was being counted at night using candle light, but the insulin drop could not be monitored properly in the dark and her sugar levels dropped alarmingly," she says.
In the meantime, the doctors noticed that the power was restored at the house of Pen-s BJP corporator Nivrutti Patil. It was finally on June 9 that power was restored.
The assistant engineer, MSEDCL, Abhijeet Salvi said, "Our aim is to give maximum benefit to consumers with minimal material at the earliest possible time. The house of a corporator was close to one of the three electric poles which fell down during the cyclone and the hospital needs heavy load connection of three phases to run various machines. The distance between the pole and hospital is more than 240 metres and it was not possible to do joints in the service wire and restore the hospital-s power as it could have been detrimental in the rainy season."
CM to visit Raigad today
CM Uddhav Thackeray will visit Raigad on Sunday to preside over distribution of relief material and financial assistance to cyclone-affected people. Incidentally, Opposition leader Devendra Fadanvis also met the CM on Saturday to discuss relief measures. Fadnavis, who also visited Raigad last week, had said that assistance hasn-t reached the people yet. Thackeray will inspect a few devastated villages and later distribute financial aid, solar lamps, and other essential items.
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