What! Another UP hospital uses sweepers to stitch wounds

Barely a day after footage of a sweeper stitching wounds emerged out of a district hospital in Bulundshahar in Uttar Pradesh, a second video has turned up. The new footage shows a sweeper in the emergency ward stitching patients, while a pharmacist administers injections to patients due to a lack of doctors in a district hospital in Balia district.

The undated video shows a sweeper stitching a patient’s wound while admitted in the emergency ward while the pharmacist is shown administering injections to patients admitted in the hospital.

The Chief Medical Superintendent of the hospital has said that sweepers were not permitted to treat the patients and condemned the incident.

“Sweepers are not allowed to treat patients. I condemn it if such practices are taking places in the Balia Hospital,” Dr PK Singh, CMS of the Balia hospital told CNN-IBN.

He also promised to take action against those found guilty.

However, Rajkumar, the sweeper caught on camera stitching the patient’s wound, said it wasn’t unusual for them to administer injections or stitch patients’ wounds, and  added that such procedures were usually carried out only after they were instructed by the doctors.

“I’m a sweeper at the hospital. When there are a lot of patients I assist the doctor with stitches and injections,” he said.

A senior official from the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Medical Services Association (PMSA) told the channel that the sweeper was only assisting the doctor but they would conduct an inquiry into the matter.

“There is a shortage of paramedical staff but we don’t allow sweepers to do minor surgeries… We will conduct an inquiry and I will ask my secretary to look into the case and give me a report,” Dr. Nirupama Singh, Vice President, PMSA, said.

Another video had surfaced yesterday of a ward boy stitching the wound of an accident victim in the Bulundshahar district hospital. While the state government had ordered an inquiry into the matter, the head of the hospital had defended it, saying that the person stitching the wound was an operation theatre assistant and was performing the medical procedure under his supervision since it was an emergency.