City hospitals battle multiple infections

There are close to 80 patients in the 40-bedded medicine ward of east Delhi's Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital. While some of them are sharing beds, others are being treated on makeshift beds on the floor.

There are close to 80 patients in the 40-bedded medicine ward of east Delhi's Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital.

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While some of them are sharing beds, others are being treated on makeshift beds on the floor.

Nine out of 10 patients have infections like dengue, typhoid and gastroenteritis.

"We can't turn them away, so we do our best to accommodate as many as possible. Apart from the medicine ward, we have allocated 30 more beds in two other wards to make place for patients with infections," said Dr U C Verma, medical superintendent, GTB Hospital.

Along with dengue and H1N1, most people are suffering from seasonal infections such as typhoid, jaundice, gastroenteritis, cholera, malaria and chicken pox.

Since many of these patients are anaemic or have low platelet counts (thrombocytopenia), they need hospitalisation.

GTB is not the only hospital under stress.

With more and more people falling prey to multiple infections, other government hospitals are also scrambling to treat as many people as possible.

"We may even have to pull in extra doctors from our medical college for our emergency, if cases keep increasing," said Dr Amit Banerjee, medical superintendent, Lok Nayak Hospital.

Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, which caters to residents of West Delhi, is also thronging with patients suffering from various infections.