Updated: September 7, 2020 12:12:40 am
“We cannot manage the hospital in a situation like this. The atmosphere has been tainted by undue political pressure … we have relayed our inability to manage the jumbo facility to the divisional commissioner. He will have to make a decision about it … . “Sujit Patker, director of Lifeline, told The Indian Express on Sunday. (Figurative)
After a series of resignations by doctors and nurses, Lifeline, the agency designated to manage Covid’s giant facilities at the Pune College of Engineering (COEP), decided to withdraw from the task of running the hospital. The private agency has conveyed its inability to run the hospital “in the face of intense political pressure and drama” that has unfolded since the hospital began operating more than 10 days ago.
“We cannot run the hospital in a situation like this. The atmosphere has been tainted by undue political pressure … we have relayed our inability to run the giant installation to the divisional commissioner. They will have to make a decision on this … ”Sujit Patker, Lifeline director, told The Indian Express on Sunday.
The decision comes after the district administration hired two more private agencies to provide medical staff. On Saturday, Divisional Commissioner Saurabh Rao said that since Lifeline was unable to provide adequate staff to run the hospital, the administration had been forced to hire two more private agencies, providing between 100 and 200 employees.
Patker said the agency could not function in a tripartite system. “It will only create confusion and create problems in effective coordination. Furthermore, these are medico-legal cases. Someone has to be responsible. One party is not responsible. And so I think it would be better if we waived the contract and let the appointees run the program, ”he said.
However, Rao said that he had asked Lifeline to stay until things “normalized” at the giant hospital. “Until the operation of the huge hospital is optimized, we have asked Lifeline to stay put. We are not discontinuing anyone from now on. We want to make sure the hospital runs efficiently, ”the divisional commissioner said.
Patker denied that they had been unable to provide adequate medical personnel. “We had appointed the right staff and we were in the process of hiring more. But problems arose when political leaders began to collapse the giant facilities and began abusing and threatening our medical staff. One by one, they began to resign. Some resigned a day after joining, others refused to do so. Nobody wanted to work under intense political pressure, ”he said.
Lifeline management said the facility’s medical team was not responsible for the situation created. “They promised us step-by-step patient admissions. But just three to four days after the hospital started operating, we were asked to handle 350 to 400 patients, all critically ill. Under the contract, in the first week, there were supposed to be 25 percent admissions, and so on. We had asked our medical team to come together to match the number of patients, but we were surprised that critically ill patients were transferred here in large numbers from other hospitals, ”he said.
Even when the state government launched an investigation into the death of television journalist Pandurang Raikar at the giant facility last week, Lifeline management has told investigators that the hospital or doctors were not responsible for his death. Management has told government officials that the patient’s relatives wanted to transfer him to a private hospital.
“Three cardiac ambulances that came from private hospitals or other sources were not suitable to transport the patient. One ambulance did not have a ventilator, while in another, the ventilator did not work. The patient died of cardiac arrest despite the efforts of our doctors to save his life, ”management told government officials. Chief Deputy Minister Ajit Pawar requested the investigation report by Monday.
“We have given our version to the authorities. We were asked to run the hospital and our team did everything they could, ”Patker said.
Too many patients at once
COEP’s jumbo facility is facing problems, primarily because too many patients were transferred from other hospitals early on. The district administration has finally realized this and has decided to restrict the movement of patients, increase the police presence outside the hospital, publish a medical bulletin twice a day, detain intruders and increase staff. All of this could have been done before the hospital started, doctors at the jumbo facility said.
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