Kishore

May 9th 🔥🔥🔥

Want to bring to your attention to a sorry story from last week. A patient known to me was admitted around 2 a.m in an unconscious state and with breathing difficulty at RGGGH, Chennai in the IMCU. I visited the patient around 10 pm that night (almost 20 hours later). First the ward itself. It was so dirty that I couldn't believe it was an ICU.I had removed my slippers when I went in and they were caked in dirt when I left. There were sometimes 2 attenders sitting on the patient's bed. The smell in the ward was overpowering. The irony was that the ward was well equipped with multi parameter monitors, ventilators and other equipment. Yet it resembled a general ward. Why can't visitors be restricted? Why can't the floor be kept clean? How will any patient susceptible to an infection stand a chance? I would like to say that things were better than they were 30 years ago when we worked there but from a hygiene and cleanliness perspective they clearly weren't. Do they not know that keeping a ward so dirty will harm lives? Why is nothing being done? So many shiny buildings are built. Many fancy equipment are procured but something as basic as cleanliness and infection control that form the heart of good healthcare is neglected. Will do a separate post on the quality of care I saw there later.