Letter sent to GM SWR regarding Rly Hospital

To    

          

            Sri. Pradeep Kumar Saxena,          

            General Manager,

            South Western Railway,

            Hubli.

Respected Sir 

    

               Sub: Modifications needed while availing medical treatment at

                    Railway Hospital, Bangalore – Request intervention

            This organization would like to highlight the mental agony and pain experienced   by the employees and their family to avail medical treatment at the Railway Hospital in Bangalore.

1)  The Railway Hospital is situated in close vicinity of the Bangalore City Railway Station (SBC).   The accessibility is quite convenient only for those people staying in the adjacent Railway Quarters, and for those staying in the nearby locality.   But a large majority of the other employees including running staff are residing quite far away from SBC, some as far as 20kms or even beyond.  The reason being skyrocketing real estate prices,  and economic viability of educational institutions, and to avoid frequent shifting of children from one institution to another when parent (running staff)  is transferred/promoted to another depot.

            

2)  Even though there are a few dedicated doctors are doing commendable service, the insufficient funds/ poor infrastructure at the Railway Hospital, SBC has been a major hurdle in ensuring a satisfactory treatment in many cases related to orthopaedics, cardiology, etc.

3)  There have been several failures in major surgery done here relating to orthopaedics, when a second Major corrective surgery had to be done at other reliable Hospitals.  Due to this some staff have been medically decategorised.  Even in some emergency cases like heart attack the patient’s life could not be saved due to non-availability of life saving drugs, and even oxygen cylinder.

  

4)  Running staff are expected to be medically fit in A1 category the highest in the railways and on par with the airlines pilots.  But how can it be maintained when they have to work round the clock, in all kinds of adverse weather too throughout the year with optimum stress.  Sometimes they have to bear the transition from a cold weather at the  starting station,  to a hot weather at the destination station and vice-versa.  Duty hours also can be arduous ranging from 8 hours to 14 hours or even more.  This type of working has led to an increase in many staff developing hypertension, BP, Diabetic etc, and leading many to be medically decategorised at the fag end of their service.

  

Sir, due to the above reasons we suggest the following which can be implemented by your good self in the interest of staff and their family welfare:

A)  During an emergency requiring immediate medical treatment like an accident, unconsciousness, chest pain (symptoms of heart attack, or stroke), etc. the staff/their family should be given the liberty to avail medical treatment at the nearest Major hospitals of his spouse’s choice, which are equipped with state of the art infrastructure,    instead of insisting the employees/their family to visit the Railway Hospital.  On such occasion time plays a crucial factor in saving life and the journey through congested traffic, and long distance to the Railway Hospital may be fatal to the patient.  After admission to the Hospital of his choice in emergency the patient or his spouse can inform the Railway Hospital, SBC so that reimbursement after treatment can be done without any hurdle.

B)  Some of the Railway Hospital Doctors take an unnecessary risk of doing surgery, at the patient’s own risk when they know pretty well that they are not sure of it being a success.  Instead of trying to gain experience by attempting such cases they should forward such cases to major hospitals for further treatment.  

Expected favaurable action from your end,

Thanking You                                            Yours Faithfully

Bengaluru    

20.03.15                                                     (C. Sunish)

 Copy To:

DRM/ SBC

CMS/SBC