PGI keeps out HIV+ patient
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070722/cth1.htm#1Arun SharmaTribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 21Patients with HIV symptoms visiting the PGI are a lost lot. There is none to guide them on the timings of the clinic. The waiting period stretches to more than four hours and doctors remain inaccessible, having to shuffle between clinics.
A doctor at the PGI’s OPD yesterday allegedly refused to attend an HIV positive patient, a truck driver’s wife, as she was annoyed at repeated requests by the attendant to examine her “soon.” She asked the patient to consult her in the afternoon, but did not return.
Following a volley of queries by this correspondent, the doctor returned to attend the patient, who had been waiting for hours.
Twentythree-year-old wife of the truck driver was diagnosed HIV positive by doctors at Muktsar and advised treatment at the PGI. “We reached the PGI on Wednesday. We were asked to go to the clinic at room no. 3027of the new OPD. We kept waiting from 8.30 am. My daughter-in-law started feeling uneasy,” said Gurdev Kaur, mother-in-law of the patient.
“At noon when my daughter-in-law began vomiting, I went to Dr Archana in the clinic, requesting her to attend the patient. She refused, saying she had to see a patient at the emergency and left.” Till 2.30 pm, there was nobody at the clinic.
Chet Singh of Kuraiwala village in Muktsar, accompanying the patient and the mother-in-law, alleged that a patient from Tanda Urmur waiting for his turn at the OPD had died yesterday.
Doctors on duty at the emergency ward later confirmed to this correspondent that the patient from the OPD had been “brought dead.”
Dr Archana B. Mohan, SMO of the National AIDS Control Organisation being run from the PGI, denied any such incident. She said she had to be at the paediatric centre between 12 noon and 1 pm.
