Patients enduring immense hardship at Jaffna Hospital
Patients seeking care at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital are facing immense hardship, due in from lack of proper facilities to staff shortage and gross neglect, according to a news report yesterday July 29th, in Jaffna Tamil Daily Uthayan.
The newspaper says, the residents are looking forward to a much more caring and peaceful environment at the only Teaching Hospital in the peninsula and urge proper corrective measures.
Excerpts from the Uthayan Report:
For patients suffering from ailments, the primary necessity for the healing process to begin is a peaceful atmosphere at the hospitals. The patient care, guidance and aftercare take precedence than the medicines.
The principal duty of the hospital is ensuring everyone, be it a patient needing routine check up or the terminally ill needing long term care is able to receive adequate care without any hardship.
We may not anticipate all these services in many hospitals. The situations in them are unavoidable.
Likewise the conditions prevailing at the only Teaching Hospital in Jaffna, The Jaffna General Hospital is sorrowful. High quality services rendered by medical professionals there is being eclipsed due to lack of dedicated performance at other levels it is feared.
The hardships faced by those seeking care at the outpatient clinic seem a continuing saga. It is extremely sad to see the immense difficulties they endure, from obtaining the appointment to finally receiving treatment.
The situation of the seniors needing care is particularly deplorable. A special division for senior care that opened a few years ago now remains closed. The seniors have to be in the midst of all the other patients to receive care. This makes it unable for them to obtain timely appointments and care. It is a painful scene seeing seniors stand in long queues to obtain medical services in their golden years.
At the medical dispensaries too the seniors are not being given preference over other patients.
Even when dispensaries are adequately staffed, the seniors have to wait for long hours to obtain their medicines. The seniors lament the long waits are exacerbating health problems.
The community outreach division seems to be not operating for the past few months and the glass walled office well designed for this purpose remains shut too.
In these days of sudden problems arising in the free the movement for people in Jaffna, patients miss their appointments due to matters beyond their control, such as restricted transportation. At times the patients will show up but the medical professionals may be unavailable due to prevailing tensed situations. Shortages of medical doctors also contribute to this dismal state. Adding to patient difficulties are careless support staff giving out appointments on days the outpatient clinic is closed. And the patients complain of struggling again to obtain a timely appointment.
Inpatient care patients too suffer immensely due to lack of proper facilities. The beds lack secure locker facilities. Increased menace of stray dogs and cats at the hospital premises are adding to the hardships. Food kept overnight is dragged away by cats. Patients are forced to carry on hungry overnight without a meal. Incidents of patients, staff and visitors being bitten by dogs are on the rise. 15 support staff was treated for dog bites within the last month only.
Amidst all the hardships, a few support staff is reportedly forcing to pay for unauthorized charges for services such as wheel chair services during patient discharging.
The residents of Jaffna peninsula look forward to a much more caring and peaceful environment at their only Teaching Hospital. They eagerly anticipate for relevant authorities and others to make steps to improve the conditions at the Jaffna Teaching Hospital in the near future.
