Sascha Wil­son

Sev­er­al pa­tients sat on chairs and stood on the cor­ri­dor of Ward 15 of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, beg­ging for a bed to rest their weary heads. Plead­ing for as­sis­tance to get a bed, the pa­tients said they were frus­trat­ed with the pub­lic health­care sys­tem and asked that the Gov­ern­ment ur­gent­ly ad­dress the over­crowd­ing sit­u­a­tion at the hos­pi­tal. An el­der­ly woman said she had been at the hos­pi­tal since 6 pm on Thurs­day with her 73-year-old hus­band who suf­fered a mild stroke. "Up to now we can­not get a bed... No med­ica­tion, noth­ing. Last night he sleep on a bench in the asth­ma room at ca­su­al­ty and to­day he still wait­ing for a bed... Not a tablet he get," she said.

Al­though she had not tak­en her med­ica­tion for di­a­betes and high blood pres­sure, the woman said she did not want to leave her hus­band un­til he got a bed. "This is ridicu­lous," she said. An­oth­er pa­tient, Sahid Ali, 52, said his left foot was swollen and painful. "They say to put up my foot, but put it where... Peo­ple suf­fer­ing here," Ali said, as he sat on a chair in the ward. He said he had been there since 11 pm on Thurs­day. An­oth­er man who said he in­gest­ed a poi­so­nous sub­stance al­so sat on a chair. With a tube con­nect­ed from his nos­trils to a bag with green flu­id, he said: "I here since last night. I in re­al pain."

Dial­y­sis pa­tient Vic­tor Low said he had been at the hos­pi­tal since 7 pm on Thurs­day, and on­ly got some­thing to eat yes­ter­day morn­ing. "My sis­ter had to bring a Gatorade and two muffins for me," said Low, who was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing seizures. A Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive said nurs­es were over­worked and frus­trat­ed. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive said the ward was be­ing used as a hold­ing bay un­til beds be­came avail­able on the med­ical wards, but the sit­u­a­tion was ter­ri­ble.

?Dr Chat­toor­goon: We're work­ing on it

?Med­ical Di­rec­tor of Health Anand Chat­toor­goon ac­knowl­edged that the hos­pi­tal did have a prob­lem with over­crowd­ing. But he said: "They are go­ing to get beds. As fast as pa­tients get dis­charged, they will get beds. Right now there are some emp­ty beds on Ward Two and some of them will be sent there. We are work­ing on it.