Mangaluru: The deliberate delay in discharging patients at Lady Goschen hospital is leading nurses to bear the brunt of the ire of family members of patients who are not discharged on the indicated date, despite assurances to the contrary by the attending doctors, mainly pediatricians and obstetricians.
A nurse on condition of anonymity, told Newskarnataka.com that every day at least ten patients’ family members demand explanations from nurses for their continuation of stay at the hospital. The Post Graduate (PG) student doctors, attending to the patients, generally inform the patients family members of a tentative date of discharge. However the actual discharge often takes place more than 8 to 10 days later, with the PG students (registered as medical officers) not signing pay-sheets on the announced date.
The senior doctors, who regularly inspect many units at the hospital, fail to offer a genuine explanation to convince the patients. The patients and family members, in general do not vent their ire on the doctors, succumbing to fear. However, both the parities often take out their anger on nurses. It is the nurses who are in frequent contact with the patients, due to which, more often than not, the nurses are at the receiving end of demands for discharge as informed to them in advance by the Doctors. The inpatients waiting for the discharge, demand reasons for the delay from them, often in anger. “The nurses have no expertise in the arena of pediatrics and gynecology and reasons for delay are unknown to us”, the nurse rued.
Increased stress levels among nurses
Even as the problem of the lack of sufficient beds for in patients continues to plague the hospital, delay in discharge has increased the stress levels of many nurses. The nurse, who interacted with Newskarnataka.com, expressed the view, that slowness in completing the medical case file of patients could be the reason for making patients wait. The interns in the hospital assist PGs in drafting case file. Many times interns fail to meet the deadlines.
Besides, the nurse said there were genuine cases of requirement for continuation of treatment for mothers or for new born babies, but concerned doctors do not convey this to the new mothers or their family members resulting in altercations with the nurses.
A brief visit to hospital’s Gynec Ward by this reporter corroborated the picture depicted by the nurse. In a 10 minute visit to the ward, at least 3-4 patient’s family members approached a senior nurse seeking discharge. “How many more days we have to wait to go home” asked Janaki (name changed). The nurse told her gently, to approach the doctor and seek a clarification. This pacified Janaki. Another patient speaking to Newskarnataka.com said she was informed by an obstetrician that she could leave hospital on April 8. “Till today I have not been cleared to leave.”
The Medical Superintendent’s view
The 272 bed Lady Goschen hospital regularly experiences a shortage of beds due to huge number of admissions for delivery. This was shared by Medical Superintendent (MS) of Lady Goschen hospital Dr Shakuntala M M. At the time of this scribe’s visit to understand the ground reality, three beds were merged to accommodate 5 patients due to a shortage of beds.
When questioned about the delay in discharging the patients, the MS explained that usually there won’t be delays due to laxity on the part of doctors, and the shortage of beds force the doctors to send patients home ASAP. However she added, “if anyone needs further treatment, we make them stay”. She did admit however, that “sometimes slowness in writing case files could create this problem. Though interns assist PG students, due to the continuous admission of patients, doctors are very busy. The PG students have to take up the patients cases after prioritizing them according to their admission or medical criticality”.
