Patients being brought to DK at last stage a bane for medical administrators

Mangaluru: Dakshina Kannada district’s prowess as a medical hub is fast proving to be its bane during the pandemic. With patients from other districts being referred for medical care in the district, a hub for tertiary care, woes of health administrators – both in the private and government sector—are getting compounded. Making matters worse is the fact that most patients referred here are brought at the last stage.
DK centre for tertiary
medical care of 7 districts
Even prior to the pandemic, Wenlock Hospital, private medical college hospitals and other private hospitals in Dakshina Kannada received a sizeable number of patients from outside the district.Dr Rajesh Shetty, MD, First Neuro, says the district receives patients from Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Hassan and Kodagu as well as from Kasaragod and Kannur in Kerala. This is in addition to local patients who frequent hospitals in this medical hub.
Admitting that advancement in terms of medical treatment facilities in some ways is proving to be counterproductive during the pandemic, deputy commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh said that it is distressing to see patients with debilitating health issues seek medical help at the last moment. “We are getting reports of patients even being brought dead to hospitals in the district, and this could have been easily averted, if all concerned were alert to the situation,” she said.
Buttressing this argument is the fact that the patients in a dozen Covid-19 linked deaths in the district in the recent past are from Uttara Kannada, Belagavi, Hassan, Udupi, Kodagu, Davanagere and Chikkamagaluru districts, Sindhu said. With Kerala sealing its borders with Dakshina Kannada due to a spurt in cases here, no patients are coming from Kasaragod and Kannur at present, she said.
On the contrary, the situation should have been the reverse, she said. “Because we have so many hospitals, we should have seen a lot more people being admitted, getting cured and then having gone back. However, with most of them coming to us at the last-minute, thanks to panic that the pandemic has induced in society, we are seeing the converse,” she surmised. Concurring with this, Dr Rajesh said, “Covid-19 is there for some time, but your regular ailments will be there for a lifetime.”
“It is appalling to see patients remain confined to their homes or sometimes locking themselves up during a medical emergency. I have witnessed at least half-a-dozen mishaps which happened at home due to the refusal on the part of patients to come to hospital. These were preventable deaths. Another reason for increased mortality rates is delay in establishing a diagnosis. Most of the times we tend to think in terms of Covid-19 and Covid-related illnesses, missing a straightforward diagnosis,” said Dr Padmanabha Kamath, a cardiologist.