December is the follow-up month at TNM where we go back to headlines of the past for a status update. In this series, we strive to bring the focus back to promises made by governments, revisit official investigations that should have been completed by now and exhume issues of public interest that lost steam over time.
In 2015, Telangana Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao made a visit to the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) heritage structure to survey the condition of the building. Soon, he addressed the media and said, “This is a building that was constructed about 110 years ago and is in a dilapidated condition. We cannot sustain the building for more than 4 years despite any kind of renovation. It may collapse anytime and it does not have any strength. The government has made a decision regarding this, and the hospital would be shifted. Everyone would be shifted and very shortly, we would construct a new building. We will let you know what kind of a structure would come up, and how a renovated hospital will be constructed.”
The OGH, which lies on the bank of the Musi River, is a listed heritage structure built during the reign of Mir Osman Ali khan, the last Nizam Nawab in 1925 and designed by British architect, Vincent Esch.
After 5 years and multiple incidents of the roof and ceiling collapsing onto patients and healthcare workers, as well as drainage and rainwater gushing into the hospital wards, the old building of the hospital was vacated and sealed in July 2020. All the patients were shifted to the other two buildings of the OGH. The old building, which once accommodated more than a thousand patients, is now being used as a pathway for doctors to access the parking lot. And after all these years, no new building has come up in place of old building and the existing buildings are being congested with the increasing number of patients.
It's been close to two-and-half years since patients were shifted to the Out-Patient (OP) and Emergency block and the Quliquthubshahi block in the OGH. Since then, the situation has only become worse with the lack of beds to accommodate the growing number of patients. Though an additional floor was constructed in the Quliqutubshah block there is no lift facility. The wards remain congested with patients sharing beds and attendees cramming together. This affects the quality of treatment and the well-being of the patients and bystanders.
Ramulu (name changed), a patient who was rushed to the OGH with a health emergency was treated at an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward initially, and a day after, shifted to the general ward. He was soon made to rest on the floor with a blanket spread beside the bed of another patient. Ramulu, still bearing urine bags and a cannula attached to him, and his attendee who came all the way from Badangpet had to wait painfully for a vacant bed.
Similarly, another patient who came from another part of the city with pancreatic ailments was also made to lie on a stretcher for 24 hours while being injected with saline drips in the ward. In another case, a patient who got admitted after sudden convulsions was made to share a bed with an already-admitted patient. This is a familiar practice in the hospital and many of the beds that are meant for a single patient are often attached with two patient slips.
“We have come from Begum Bazar after my husband faced a heart-related issue. We were not given a bed soon enough. It's the same situation for many here. The doctors keep coming and giving treatment, but if there are no beds to sleep in, at least for the patient, how can we adjust?” questioned Saritha (name changed), a patient attendee.
Meanwhile, duty doctors have to physically search for their patients to locate them at peak hours. “At times, especially in the mornings when the patient inflow is high, we often get confused about our patients. We have to search under the beds because we never know whether the patient we are looking for is on the floor or somewhere on a stretcher since the availability of beds keeps changing,” shared a duty doctor in the ward. The ward, which ideally should accommodate 39 patients with its 39-bed count, has about 50 to 60 patients. The general ward is also now combined with patients from the orthopedic wing as there is not enough space for a separate orthopedic unit.
The duty doctor added, “Not just for patients, there is not enough space to store the medical supplies as well here. It's always a haphazard situation. In the old building, there was enough space for each patient, and patients were neatly placed in separate units depending on their medical conditions. But now, it's a mess.”
Earlier in March, the Telangana High Court constituted a committee with Engineers-in-Chief from various departments, as well as experts from IIT Hyderabad, and members of the Archeological Survey of India, Telangana, to study the structural stability of the Osmania Hospital building, the heritage building which was earlier the in-patient block.
The committee submitted its report in July before the High Court stating, “The condition of the building is not safe for use presently, and cannot be used for hospital purposes at all. However, the structure can be repaired and renovated so as to increase the life of the building and can be put to use after taking up repair works for non-hospital purposes. As it is a listed heritage building, appropriate conservation repairs are to be taken up under the supervision of the conservation architect.”
The government has not made it clear what its stand is officially, yet. Speaking to TNM, Dr Mahesh from the Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) stressed that though the committee has submitted its report, the government has not revealed its stand.
“The government has to take some stand. We want to know whether the government is complying with the committee report or not – will a new building be constructed in the open space, what is the time period, what is the budget approval, and what is the estimate? – we don't understand why they are taking so much time in arriving at a decision. There is no commitment from the government to build a structure for the OGH, I don't understand why we have to go behind them again and again,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Friday, December 9, members of the Osmania Junior Doctors Association (JUDA), Osmania Alumni Association (OAA), HRDA, Telangana Government Doctors Association, and a few others organised a rally from OGH to Osmania Medical college. Around 200 students, doctors, and activists took to the streets to bring attention to the dire need for a new OGH building.
Dr. Vanya Jasmine, General Secretary, JUDA, explained to TNM the kind of issues the hospital faces due to the lack of a new building. “With the scarcity of beds and wards, there is a lot of confusion about patients at times, and we are not able to do justice to those who need medical attention. We don't understand what we are doing,” said Vanya.
“At times, we have to send some patients home with insufficient treatment so that a more seriously ill patient can be accommodated in their bed. Earlier, if a patient was scheduled for surgery, we used to prepare them by performing an investigation and then keep them under observation. Whereas now, after some tests, we have to send them home and ask them to come on the day of surgery so that hospital beds are available for others. But sometimes patients come from far away places and it is not feasible for them to do so many rounds,” she added. She also said that the glory of the Osmania hospital was also about the kind of treatment patients used to receive and not just the building.
Meanwhile, Anuradha Reddy, a heritage expert and member from INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage), made her stand clear at a press interaction that a new hospital should be built on the hospital premises without disturbing the heritage of the structure.
Dr Srikanth, another member of the JUDA asked, “What's the point in keeping a building that is dilapidated when no one can use it? It would be great if the same space can turn into a new hospital and regain its glory. Recently, the hospital had about 3000 admissions on December 1, which is a record, and the hospital could not provide efficient treatment to all of them due to the lack of beds. If there is a new building, it would be good for everyone.”
When the News Minute approached the OGH superintendent B Nagender, he declined to comment on the issue. However, in a response to a question raised at the Telangana Assembly eight months ago, K Chandrasekhar Rao responded to MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi by saying, “I request Health Minister (Harish Rao) to take up the reconstruction of Osmania hospital in accordance with the heritage laws. We request the Chief Secretary to visit the hospital. We don't want to let go of Osmania, but what can be done there? I request the Chief Secretary and the Health Minister to conduct a joint visit and see what can be done.”
Meanwhile, Health Minister T Harish Rao, while participating in a meeting in Karimnagar stated that the government has plans to construct a new building without disturbing the old heritage structure after the court clearance. He further added that the decision is being delayed as some people approached the court, according to a report from Telangana Today. According to reports, the Telangana High Court has been hearing various Public Interest Litigation (PIL)s – while some of them demand the construction of a new building by demolishing the old structure, the others are fighting for the protection of the heritage structure.
Watch the video of CM KCR speaking to the media: