Resh­ma Ra­goonath

South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) ex­ec­u­tives have kicked con­tin­gency plans in­to high gear as chron­ic over­crowd­ing con­tin­ues to crip­ple the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. The in­sti­tu­tion's med­ical di­rec­tor, Dr Anand Cha­toor­goon, in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, said the over­crowd­ing sit­u­a­tion at the hos­pi­tal re­mained the same. On Wednes­day evening, a spe­cial meet­ing was con­vened with Cha­toor­goon, act­ing SWRHA chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Anil Go­sine and the au­thor­i­ty's chair­man Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe to dis­cuss the over­crowd­ing sit­u­a­tion.

A de­ci­sion was tak­en at the meet­ing to fast track the re­fur­bish­ment of Ward 15 which would give the hos­pi­tal much need­ed space for at least 20 beds. "We are try­ing to fast track that re­fur­bish­ment...hope­ful­ly with­in a week or two we will have a space avail­able," Cha­toor­goon said. Yes­ter­day, el­der­ly pa­tients on Ward 12 com­plained about bed short­age. One pa­tient, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said pa­tients were forced to sleep on card­board on the hos­pi­tal floor. An­oth­er pa­tient, Mary De­onar­ine, who was ward­ed on Wednes­day, said she was in pain af­ter sleep­ing on a chair. "Oh God, it ain't easy to have pres­sure and sug­ar and sit­ting on a chair all night long," she lament­ed. "That is stress, all your body pain­ing, your bot­tom cramp­ing. I try­ing to get a bed but I go wait. To go home and then come back nah, I would rather make the sac­ri­fice."