Sonkatch (Madhya Pradesh): Negligence and dilly-dallying tactics on the part of the medical staff here had put the lives of six severely injured patients at risk on Friday as they took an inordinately long time to arrange for ambulances to shift them to the referred hospital in Indore.
The fact that three ambulances were parked right in the hospital premises at that time raises serious questions about the functioning of the hospital administration and concerned officers including block medical officer Dr Adarsh Naneria who despite the chaos prevailing in the hospital due to the arrival of these patients within an hour of each other did not care to attend to the patients immediately.
It was only after the sub-divisional officer Abhishek Singh, on being informed about the incident after about an hour, directed Dr Naneria to arrange for an ambulance at the earliest, that the doctor swung into action. He discussed the situation of the patients with the hospital staff and sent them to Indore in the same ambulance which had remained parked for an hour in the hospital premises.
In the first incident, two groups of people had got into a fight over demand for money to deposit the group loan instalment at Nipania Hurhur village on Friday.
The accused attacked Suraj Singh, Gulab Singh and other people with sticks and other weapons. The severely injured brothers, Suraj Singh and Gulab Singh, were rushed to the community health centre where Dr Kuldeep Karma referred them to Indore.
Later, Narayan Singh and Mahendra Singh of Agera village were brought to the hospital after being severely injured in an accident. They suffered injuries in the head, hands and legs. Thereafter, Yusuf and Yasmine of Dewas suffered major injuries in an accident near Daulatpur on Indore-Bhopal highway road. They were also rushed to the hospital at around 12:45 pm.
All six patients were referred to Indore and Dewas. Their families requested for an ambulance to shift the patients, but the hospital staff refused, saying that the driver was unavailable. They also said that there was some mechanical flaw in the vehicle.
The other patients were rushed to the district hospital in personal vehicles, but the patients from Nipania Hurhur suffered for an hour on stretchers while the family members kept pleading for some help.
