For Delhi blast victims, the real wounds are inflicted in hospital

“These are soldiers injured in a war. Those who lost their lives died for their country,” said a visitor to the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital, who was sitting with a family outside the hospital’s trauma ward. For 21 days now, since a powerful bomb exploded outside the Delhi High Court, the family has been spending its nights sleeping outside, on the hospital’s corridors. It is around 8 pm on Tuesday. Bed-sheets have been spread out on the floor. Inside, visible through the glass windows, two more families of those injured in the bomb blast, are preparing to spend the night on the floor in the waiting room. The setting seems far from fitting for families from whom the country has exacted a heavy price. [caption id=“attachment_96357” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The Delhi blast left 15 dead and 70 people injured. Manan Vatsyayana/AFP”]  [/caption] The blast left 15 dead and 70 people injured. On the morning of 7 September, all the blast injured were brought to RML. Some patients have since been referred to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Trauma Centre, Max Hospital and Moolchand and LNJP hospitals. The media is no longer being given access by the hospitals to meet those injured in the blast. The medical superintendent of RML, Dr TS Sidhu, speaking to Firstpost earlier this week said the patients were recovering and that the ‘acute trauma phase’ had ended. “We have eight patients with us now. Some of them are ready to be discharged. But we don’t want to discharge them forcefully. We are keeping them till their families are confident of taking them home,” he said. But for some, the struggle with the hospital authorities has been a trying and disillusioning experience. They tell of an appalling lack of sensitivity by staff and of blatant medical negligence. “Had my father received proper medical treatment in time, he wouldn’t have lost his leg,” said Vaibhav, son of Vipin Kumar Gautama. The 64-year-old heart patient is now at the AIIMS trauma centre, where he was referred to after two days at RML. His left leg was amputated below the knee last week. There was more to come. A wound on his left thigh was left unrecorded. It had been stitched up but not investigated at RML. Vipin Kumar, alerted his doctors at AIIMS, that the wound was beginning to hurt him. The wound was then superficially treated and stitched up again. “Four days later, when I felt my thigh, I felt a protrusion. They did an X-ray and it showed that an iron nail was implanted deep in my thigh. Two hospitals failed to detect it. Yesterday, an operation was done and the nail removed,” said Vipin Kumar. He shows his visitors the one-inch long nail now kept in a vial on his bedside table. He recounts with horror the chaos that ensued at RML when the injured in the blast began to pour in the hours the followed the blast. He was among the first to be brought to the hospital. “There was no coordinated emergency system in place. The beds were lined up and patients just laid up. There were not enough oxygen cylinders and even first aid kits for that matter.” Why were all the injured taken to one hospital and not more, when the number of victims was so large, is a question some are asking. For many who have been discharged from the hospital, the trauma continues. Imran Ali, 25, is still doing the hospital rounds. The impact of the blast was such that he was thrown off the ground and landed a couple of feet from where he was standing. He was at the Delhi High Court with his uncle and two cousins. His cousin, who suffered a fracture is in his hand, is still in hospital. Imran has lost hearing in his left ear. He can barely hear in the other. He suffers from severe headaches and constant pain in his right ear. “There is a constant whistling sound in my ear. And when I sleep at night, my ear bleeds.” He was discharged from hospital on the second day. But when he returned to the emergency ward, unable to bear the headaches and the bleeding, he was hounded out. “They told me to go to OPD (out-patient). Only after my mother created a scene, they agreed to see me.” He has been a told that he might need an operation. When and what for, he does not know. The treatment so far, he says, hasn’t improved his condition in any way. “I went to a private clinic to find out what is wrong with me. I’ll have to go again for a check-up.” RML’s medical superintendent referred to a letter that one of his doctors had sent him as part of a review of the hospital’s emergency response to the blast. Among the points raised by the doctor in his letter were requirement of ‘more ultra sound machines, patient lifting machines, a coordinated system of assigning duties." It also mentioned preventing what is described in hospital terminology as ‘Do No Further Harm’ to patients. One will never know to what degree the tragedy of the bomb blast was compounded by an unequipped and unprepared emergency hospital care. Despite the spate of bomb blasts that have rocked India, why are we are still groping in the dark?