Hyderabad: The government-run Gandhi Hospital in Hyderabad is under cloud after 21 patients died on Friday last. The hospital blamed power failure for the deaths. Some doctors said electricity first tripped around 3 pm and the same situation continued at regular intervals. Although there were four generators on standby, the hospital claimed these had developed snags and couldn't be used when power lines were later cut off to find the cause of the tripping.
The deaths occurred in the speciality wards, including the surgical intensive care unit, neo-natal intensive care unit, respiratory intensive care unit, acute medical care unit and the emergency ward, all of which were affected by the power failure.
“In my 14 years of working at this hospital, on average 10 patients die daily,” said Dr R Raghu, general secretary, (Gandhi Hospital unit), Telangana Government Doctors' Association. “These extra deaths can only be due to the power cuts.”
Telangana health minister Dr C Laxma Reddy said it would be wrong to directly blame the deaths on power outages. “Tertiary care hospitals in the government sector such as Gandhi, tend to get maximum number of last-stage cases, some of which are referred by private and district government hospitals. So, a high mortality number on a day is not uncommon,” he said.
Prof C V Chalam, superintendent in charge of the hospital, said the deaths would have to be probed to determine if they were directly or indirectly linked to the blackout. Asked what went wrong with the power supply, Prof Chalam said power connectivity had been cut to repair the lines after the intermittent outages. Last month, there had been a similar blackout. The hospital relied on its four generators, using two at a time till supply was restored, he added. “We shut down the power lines for several hours. There is a three-phase power supply to the hospital, but with the lines tripping on and off, our staff found it difficult to manage uninterrupted supply,” he said. Sources at the hospital said that some of the deaths were of patients who were on life support system, such as ventilators and incubators in the neo-natal ward. Other emergency equipment that needed high voltage power to function was also affected, the sources added.
