Patients, hospitals too bear brunt of rain in Lucknow
Lucknow remained submerged in water as the city recorded 140 mm rainfall at the IMD observatory in 24 hours
The heavy rain which battered the state capital also spelt trouble for patients who found it hard to reach hospitals, on Monday.
Water entered the nursing station of the TB Hospital in Thakurganj while water-logging troubled patients at many other hospitals, bringing down patient footfall during the day. At the Balrampur Hospital, 3,033 OPD tickets were issued while on usual days it is over 5,000.
“There was knee-deep water in front of the main entrance and the cab driver refused to cross the water and take me inside. Finally, some security personnel helped me get inside and see a doctor,” said Ram Kishan, who had come from Prayagraj to the Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences.
Here, water-logging at the main entrance troubled both patients and the duty staff also. At Lohia Institute, 2,113 OPD tickets were issued against 4,000 tickets on normal days via online OPD booking.
Hospital OPDs had very few patients till 9 am but gradually people started arriving and small queues were seen outside doctors’ chambers. Usually, government hospitals get a crowd of patients and attendants by 9 am.
The main entrance of Civil Hospital and Lok Bandhu Hospital too sported similar scenes. The King George’s Medical University issued 5,932 OPD tickets against usual days when about 7,000 OPD tickets are issued.
The Civil Hospital got 5,132 patients in the OPD against normal 6,000 and Lok Bandhu hospital got 1,496 patients during the day against a normal of about 2,200.
“All services ran smoothly on the campus,” said Dr Ajai Shankar Tripathi, medical superintendent of the Lok Bandhu Hospital.
At the Aliganj Mother and Child Hospital, water entered the room where the medicine stock was kept after which staff swiftly moved the medicines to another place. Water also entered the place where the freezer was kept with vaccines.
Due to the rain private hospitals had to extend their OPD schedule. “Patients kept calling till 2 pm asking if they could come as they could not step out of house due to water-logging till then. We extended the OPD timings for such patients,” said Dr Amita Shukla, senior gynaecologist SC Trivedi Memorial Hospital.
At some hospitals, the medical staff too reached late. In emergency wards, the night shift staff had to wait for relievers to come and take charge. The shift changes by 8 am but due to the rain, the shift change happened after 9 am at many places.
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