Puri: At a time when Puri district’s COVID-19 situation is turning grimmer by the day, shortage of doctors at Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) here is affecting health care service.
The IDH has been functioning as a COVID Care Hospital.
Bimbadhar Dash, a resident of Puri town, had taken his wife to the IDH after she tested positive for COVID-19. She was admitted to the facility at 7 am. She was lying on the bed till 2:00 pm but no doctor attended her.
“With no option left, I had to take her to a private hospital,” alleged Dash.
Dash’s case is the tip of the iceberg.
However, COVID in-charge at IDH Dr Sushant Panda termed the allegation as baseless. “There are doctors in the morning shift. They are attending patients at regular intervals,” he said.
At the same time, he admitted that the facility has a shortage of doctors. “The number of beds has been increased by 30. But there is no corresponding appointment of doctors,” he added.
The IDH is presently being managed by 12 doctors and one doctor is under isolation after contacting the virus.
Several COVID patients have reportedly been referred to either Bhubaneswar or Cuttack after they developed complicacies relating to heart and lungs. When asked why patients are being referred to other hospitals, additional district medical officer (Public Health) Dr Girija Shankar Rath said that the IDH does not have a cardiologist.
Expressing his concern, advocate Bibhuti Bhushan Tripathy said, “Cases of COVID patients complaining of cardio problems are being reported in Puri. So there must be a cardiologist at the IDH.”
Notably, Puri district Monday reported 530 new COVID-19 cases, taking the district’s caseload to 20,131. Of them, while 17 021 patients have recovered from the disease, 2,981 are undergoing treatment. The killer disease has so far claimed 126 lives in the district.
PNN