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Our Correspondent
Kohima, Sep. 22 (EMN): The Naga Hospital Authority Kohima (NHAK) has been registering outpatients since resuming normal helthcare services on September 21.
It is interesting to note that serious or emergency patients have already been kept in the hospital while family members of the patients coming for check-up expressed their happiness that they could come and consult the doctors and nurses.
Eastern Mirror visited NHAK and interacted with some patients and medical personnel on the second day since the resumption of the normal services at the hospital on Tuesday. Some of the patient’s family members expressed their ordeals that they had to face at other private hospitals during the nationwide lockdown period due to unaffordable charges for treatment.
"My husband fell down a couple of days ago but I could not take him to any private hospital since my children were not at home," a woman told Eastern Mirror.
She shared that she couldn't take her ailing husband to the private hospitals reasoning that such facilities are "expensive". However, on hearing that NHAK has opened its normal health services, they took him to the hospital to avail the facilities.
"It is very helpful for us to come here; we hope that he will get well," she said.
Her daughter also expressed positivity about the opening of NHAK saying that the facility is affordable for "poor people" to some extent when compared to private hospitals which "charge exorbitant treatment bills" in Kohima.
An elderly woman from a village also visited the hospital with a prolonged case of ‘itchy condition’ and rash on her face in the evening. The woman, who is a farmer by profession, said that she had been experiencing the problem ever since the nationwide lockdown came into force.
Her daughter shared that she had visited a pharmacy and a community health centre at their village in Kohima but her condition persisted. Since private hospitals are "costly", they decided to come to NHAK on hearing that the facility is now open for patients.
A nurse working in the hospital also expressed happiness on the resumption of normal services in the hospital saying that a large number of patients, who could not afford to visit private hospitals, could now avail the facilities in the hospital as usual.
"There are quite a huge number of poor patients even in their own places who can't afford for treatment in private hospitals," the nurse said, adding,
"We are happy that the normal functioning in the hospital has resumed".
"Still there are some cases of Covid-19 here but we hope that the hospital will get back to normal too soon," she shared.
However, another nurse on duty expressed that strict SOP protocols should be maintained by outpatients and their attendants while visiting the hospital for consulting the doctors and for staying in the hospital.
She explained that there is still possibility of community transmission of Covid-19 from the hospital as there are chances of increasing outpatients on daily basis.
"People are coming from all the colonies and places. We do not know who is who and from which colony people are coming to the hospital," she shared.
"Many patients come here (NHAK) with family members, relatives and others in groups, so we must be careful," she said considering the increasing number of Covid-19 cases. "I'm happy that I'm back to my normal profession as a nurse but I'm worried about the rising cases of the Covid-19," she added.
Many medical personnel had been involved in the battle against the novel coronavirus in the early phase of the nationwide lockdown.
A considerable number of outpatients and one emergency patient had registered in the hospital record on the second day of the resumption of the health services at NHAK on Tuesday.
NHAK had resumed its normal healthcare services on September 21 after six months since it was converted to a designated Covid-19 hospital. There are still about 10 Covid-19 symptomatic patients who are segregated at the isolation wards.
While the Covid-19 patients are being kept in isolation wards at NHAK, the collection of samples for Covid-19 testing has been shifted to the state Indoor Stadium near Raj Bhavan.