Bhopal: It is 11pm. A critically ill elderly woman, in search for a washroom, stands helplessly outside a closed-dirty toilet in the premises of Sultania Zanana Hospital.
This is the tale of the only woman hospital in the city. Nearly 235 patients have one toilet that too remains shut at night.
The only washroom on the campus, run by Sulabh International, is being used by everyone. Consequently, patients have to queue up outside the toilet from daybreak and it continues till nightfall. The washroom is shut at 8.30pm.
The government-run Sultania Zanana hospital does not have a single toilet in working condition for public use and nobody seems to care.
For all the patients and their kin, it has only one washroom area with five toilets in line. Three of them are so dirty that they are beyond use. The remaining two stay shut.
At a time when urinary tract infection is the most prevalent disease due to bacteria, the women-only hospital pays no heed to the hygiene of the gender most prone to it.
Sharda Devi, kin of a patient admitted in Sultania, told Free Press that she never drinks water after 8.30pm, saving her bladder from extra storage. Sharda’s daughter just had a caesarian at Sultania.
OPTION SANS PRIVACY
Passage by which the toilets are set up becomes the urinal sometimes, said another woman who has her sister-in-law admitted. The broken windows, however, provide a clear show for the men out there, but then at times the urge to pee is stronger than privacy, she added.
An old man who came to visit her newborn grand-daughter said it was easy to pee in open because nobody cared what happened by your side in a dark and quiet night.
He said administration’s apathy has forced women to relieve themselves behind the cars parked inside the hospital. Certainly consult for sanitation and hygiene of woman goes for a toss, he added.
The hospital superintendent, ID Chaurasia, told Free Press he was not aware of lack of facilities at hospital. He would look into the matter immediately and ensured that women get access to proper facilities, he added.
