Himadri Kalita
Health is Wealth
Growing up, we have always heard from our elders and doctors that health is the biggest wealth for a human being in his/her entire life as one may be able to live on without excess money but definitely cannot survive without good health.
Ace stock market investor Late Rakesh Jhunjhunwala once during an interview said, “My worst investment has been my health. I would encourage everybody to invest the most in that.”
Several government and private hospitals have been built in the state to provide the best treatments to the patients suffering various illnesses but are they adhering to the basic standards of a health care facility?
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in healthcare facilities with waste management and environmental cleaning are fundamental to ensuring high-quality health care, safe maternal and child health services, occupational health, and infection prevention and control (IPC).
The private hospitals mostly adhere to the hygiene standards, however, in contrast, these requirements, a few times, are not met in state government-run hospitals.
One such state government-run hospital is Govt Ayurvedic College and Hospital located in Guwahati’s Jalukbari area where most patients complain of unhygienic conditions, starting from foul smell to dirty toilets.
The patients receiving treatment from the Ayurvedic Hospital often praised the professional behavior of the doctors and their services to treat them, however, these praises become pointless when the question of cleanliness and hygiene comes up as it is the basic standard to be followed at a health care facility.
If you have ever visited the Ayurvedic Hospital, you might have noticed a foul smell while entering and moving towards the registration counter making it impossible for anyone to inhale.
Furthermore, the patients who are admitted to the hospital narrated their misery to find a clean and hygienic toilet as the washrooms in the semi-private cabin and general ward are in deplorable states.
When asked about the hygiene standards in the hospital, the principal of Ayurvedic College, Dr. Pranabjyoti Baishya has accepted that they are unable to adhere to the hygiene standards adding that the issue will be solved by next week.
Dr. Baishya said, “We are aware of the matter as several complaints have been received from patients who praised the services provided in our hospital but stated our hospital lacks basic hygiene standards. But we are making our efforts to solve this issue by next week.”
Stating the reasons behind their lack of adhering to the standards, the principal said, “At present, we have only five sanitation workers at the hospital who receive a minimal payment of Rs. 5,000-6,000. As they are not permanent workers and most of workthe cleaning works is done manually, they become unavailable after noon. Despite several warnings and legal actions taken against them, they do not fulfill their tasks properly due to which we are thinking about outsourcing the sanitation works. With this outsourcing of sanitation works, we are hopeful that the matter raised by our patients will be solved.”
The issue that the sanitation workers do not fulfill their duties citing minimal wages is a matter of concern. It is because the in charge of the hospital is unable to supervise the staff or she is running from her duties?
Meanwhile, a concern over the lack of wheelchairs was also raised by the patients as those who come for panchakarma treatment find it difficult to manage at least one workable wheelchair in the entire hospital and a broken lift.
Speaking on this matter, the principal said, “We have five wheelchairs in our hospital of which four are in workable conditions. However, these wheelchairs are mostly scattered in parts of the hospital as the ward boys do not keep them back in the area where they could be easily available to the patients. This problem is faced due to a lack of manpower. However, we placed our requirement for wheelchairs and are hopeful that four wheelchairs will arrive soon. Moreover, we are apologetic about the broken lift as the repairing work is taking time due to certain procedures.”
Dr. Baishya assured us that problem of the broken lift will be solved as soon as possible.
Although the principal has given assurance to address all the complaints raised by the patients, the real question remains why it is taking so long to solve them?
If we compare the facilities available in the Ayurvedic Hospital with that of Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), we will find that the facilities required in a healthcare centre are fully accessible in the latter. Undoubtedly, both the hospitals try to provide the best facilities to their patients, however, at one hospital, the patients receive all the facilities while in the other, the patients face difficulty in even finding a workable wheelchair.
It is because the state health department is giving more importance to the other hospitals and not to the Ayurvedic Hospital? Noticing the long wait for receiving the required items, it can only be assumed that there is a lack of funds.
However, the reason behind this negligence by the health department is not known.
We can now only hope that the issues faced by the patients are resolved soon as cleanliness leads to good health, and living in these deplorable conditions would only make a patient more unhealthy.
