Orthopaedic surgeries take a hit at Abohar Civil Hospital

Raj Sadosh

Abohar, June 26

Harjot Singh (7), a resident of Indira Nagari, had fractured his leg while playing seven days ago. He was admitted to the Civil Hospital to undergo orthopaedic surgery. But the same could not be done as anaesthesia immunisation machine was lying defunct at the Civil Hospital.

The anaesthesia specialist who joined duty after a two-month leave explained that children below 10 years of age could not be operated upon due to the malfunctioned machine. As a result, Sapna and Buta Singh (parents) had to crowdfund money for the surgery of their son at a private hospital. After reporting the matter to senior officials, it came to the fore that ortho related surgeries of children had not been performed at the hospital for the past 30 months.

“The orthopaedician said sedation was must to perform surgery. Anaesthesia specialist was on a leave. Now, he told that sedation machine was non-functional,” said Buta.

The officiating SMO, Dr Neerja Gupta, said she took the charge recently and has come to know about the issue as the anaesthesia specialist was not ready to take the risk of sedating the child without anaesthesia immunisation machine.

Earlier, many patients had to get ultrasound scans done from private labs as the machine at the Civil Hospital remained defunct for a month.