TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: A family of five travels all the way from Canacona to the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) for a life saving operation to remove a potentially cancerous nodule from the chest of the head of the family.
It’s a grueling journey to the hospital and to make matters worse for them, the waiting area has no fans or air conditioning. Sitting among the broken chairs in the waiting area of the Lower Operation Theatre (OT), family members wait for news of the success of the surgery while summer temperatures reach a humid 33º Celsius.
This is the second time the Canacona family has had to visit the hospital and this time too it is disappointing. They arrived at 7 am and had to wait till 9 am for the procedure to begin. All the while the family, consisting of the patient’s wife, daughter, son-in-law and a relative, had to wait in a square hall with no fan in sight.
“The last time we had come in the night and were made to wait the entire night in the waiting area with mosquitoes swarming around us. This time the weather is hot and it is unbearable,” said the wife.
Several other waiting areas in the GMC have similar tales to tell. Outside the general Out Patient Department (OPD), security guards and hospital staff sit with newspapers that double as hand fans for lack of electric fans.
A staff member requesting anonymity acknowledged the lack of ventilation with windows that are rarely opened. “We have to sit sometimes for long hours in this area where there is no ventilation. It becomes very difficult with the heat and the sweat,” said the hospital staff member.
Other waiting areas that do not have any form of cooling include the CT scan and X-Ray waiting areas.
