Hyderabad: Osmania Hospital is on ventilator; netizens demand new building

Hyderabad: Patients go to hospitals for healing, and for getting proper treatment. But Hyderabad’s hundred-plus-year-old Osmania General Hospital (OGH) is in a state where, instead of their healing, patients have to worry about the ceiling falling on them or the staircases crumbling below their feet.

Despite the state government’s promises of a new building for seven years, while keeping the heritage façade intact, the century-old crumbling building is still being used, compromising the safety of patients, doctors, and staff working at the hospital.

Of late, the demand for a new building for Osmania General Hospital (OGH) has grown stronger on social media. Members of ‘Justice for OGH,’ comprising several senior doctors, medical students, nurses, paramedics, and staff of OGH, have raised their voices together by continuously tweeting about the apathy of the government and authorities towards establishing a new building for the dilapidated OGH. From time to time, Twitter trends have also been planned to seek the attention of the government.

OGH is always overloaded with patients and the present partially unusable building condition has necessitated in-patients to lie on the floor or share beds with other patients.

Dr. Mohammad Jahangir, who completed general surgery at OGH in 2020, had been one of the most doctors vocal about OGH getting a new building for taking proper care of poor patients.

“As part of the ‘Justice for OGH’ campaign, we have decided to post the maximum number of tweets within a limited period, so that it keeps trending on top and the government takes note of the issue. After the twitter-trend started on Sunday evening, we had 39,751 tweets till late night. A few days ago, Telangana governor Tamilsai Soundararajan retweeted our tweet on OGH expressing her concern. We hope our Twitter campaign reaches the state government and the needful is done,” he said.

Dr. Jahangir also clarified that there is no objection from the court about rebuilding OGH, which is a heritage structure. “The court has given directions and has asked the state government to come up with a plan about how it wants to go forward with the construction or what it plans to do regarding OGH. The INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) members had also clarified that a new hospital should be built on the hospital premises without disturbing the heritage of the old structure. There is no stay order or major objections from anywhere regarding a new hospital building. But still, there is an indefinite delay and patients are suffering. Even doctors and staff had a narrow escape many times when the ceiling gave away and we protested wearing helmets.”

Tweets demanding new building for OGH

After more visuals of crumbling staircases and roofs emerged, the tweets by irate members in the past 24 hours are as follows:

“Every patient deserves a healing environment…” “Inadequate infrastructure and lack of government support at OGH are causing immense suffering to patients. The suffering of patients should come to an end. This needs urgent attention,” “The lack of proper facilities and overcrowding at Osmania General Hospital adversely affects patient well-being.”

“No more bandaids on a crumbling structure. It’s time for a real solution. “Enough is enough! Our outdated hospital building is a danger to all. “The decrepit state of our hospital building is a disgrace.”

“The state of OGH highlights the dire consequences of neglecting healthcare infrastructure. “Osmania Hospital, once a beacon of hope, now struggles even to provide basic care. Let’s raise our voices for change.”

The wait continues for seven years

In 2015, Telangana Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao visited OGH to survey the condition of the heritage building. Addressing the media, he had said that the century-old building cannot be sustained for more than a few years despite renovation. It may collapse anytime. The government had decided to shift the hospital and soon a new building will be constructed. But no new building has come up till mid-2023.

Building gone from bad to worse

However, more than seven years have passed since then. The condition of OGH has deteriorated from bad to worse with multiple incidents of roof and ceiling collapsing onto patients and healthcare workers, as well as drainage and rainwater entering the wards.

After the old hospital building was vacated in July 2020, all the patients were shifted to two other buildings of OGH, making the overcrowded hospital even more congested with patients lying on the floor due to a lack of beds. The hospital has around 2,000 plus in-patients at any given point in time, which is almost double its capacity and it sees thousands of out-patients daily.

The OGH is a listed heritage structure built during the reign of Mir Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad in 1925 and was designed by the British architect, Vincent Esch.