Chandigarh: It was a traumatic experience for a 28-year-old patient from Ambala who was made to shuttle between the PGI and GMCH-32 for admission. Though he was referred from the Ambala civil hospital to the PGI, he couldn’t get admission in both the premier medical institutes in Chandigarh.
None of the institutes even stabilised the patient – Sanjeet Mandal who works as a labourer and is the sole breadwinner of his family – forcing him to borrow Rs 30k from someone for his treatment at a Mohali-based private hospital, his relatives alleged. Moved by Mandal‘s horrible experience, city-based social worker Shashi Shankar Tiwari lodged a complaint on Saturday at the President’s grievance portal, requesting for an inquiry by the health ministry in the matter.
Mandal alleged that the Ambala civil hospital had referred him to the PGI where doctors scratched the referral card and overwrote ‘referred to GMCH 32’. “I had an accident while working in a factory and injured my arm on April 14. On the same day, the civil hospital in Ambala referred me to the PGI,” said Mandal. He said, “When my relatives took me there, the doctors after almost an hour of waiting told them to shift me to GMCH. I was taken to GMCH where the doctors said they could not handle my case and I should go to the PGI again.”
The patient’s relatives again took him to the PGI’s trauma centre where he was not attended to, according to the complainant. “With excruciating pain, Mandal was taken to a private hospital in Mohali where he will be operated upon which may cost him more than Rs 50,000,” Tiwari claimed.
Both GMCH and PGI are referral centres which see tertiary cases from neighbouring states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana. “There is a system of referral where a district hospital which is unable to manage a case can refer the cases to such hospitals. In case any of these tertiary hospitals have scarcity of beds, it can back referral the case after stabilising the patient. In such cases, the doctor concerned can communicate with the doctor for shifting patients and accordingly a bed can be arranged. This is seldom followed,” said a faculty.
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