Rourkela: Patients and their attendants in Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) here have to manage for days without relieving themselves due to acute shortage of water in the hospital, a report said.
While this created a weird situation, hospital authorities cited ‘over-crowding’ as a reason for the problem, it was learnt.
According to reports, the hospital has 10 overhead tanks that contain 16,000 litre of water. Apart from patients, all hospital staff use the water. However, most of the times the tanks are found empty leaving the patients and the attendants in the lurch. Left with no option, attendants of patients use the private toilets outside the campus, it was learnt.
Meanwhile, Himanshu Nayak (Spark), a local social activist, took up the matter with the chief medical officer. Of six toilets in the hospital, five don’t work forcing the patients and their attendants remain without relieving themselves, Nayak told the CMO.
Ashis Kumar Sahoo of Uditnagar said he admitted his father to the hospital four days back but they faced a lot of problems due to dry taps. He finally went to a private toilet outside the hospital campus to relieve himself. But this is not possible in case of his ailing father, Sahoo pointed out.
While the CMO assured to solve the problem soon, deputy CMO Dr SK Kabisatpathy said the water facility is meant for 128 patients only. There is a three-fold increase in the number of patients which is posing a problem, he clarified.
This apart, at least three attendants accompany every single patient and stay back in the hospital from the day the government started providing free meals to them. This has increased the water consumption in the hospital, the Dy CMO further said.
He, however, said construction of a tank with water holding capacity of one lakh litres is underway and the problems would be solved once it becomes operational.
PNN