Puran´s brother, who had got a deep cut on his head when he ran into the fan of a grain separator at his home, in Prempur, Gunahi Rahautat, was sent to TUTH after he was returned from hospitals in Gaur and Birgunj.
While Puran´s aunt spends her nights sitting on a chair, resting her head on the patient´s bed, Puran sleeps in the corridor outside the neuro ward, where his brother is being treated, because TUTH, like many other hospitals in Nepal, can´t afford to provide any facility for the caretakers-friends and family of patients who accompany the patients.
"Those who wait on the patients are not here to sleep; they are here to care for the patients, so we can provide them with a chair, that´s all," says Dr Keshav Prasad Singh, Director of TUTH.
But Puran-who came here in an ambulance from Rautahat, without enough money, without any bedding-is left to spend his nights in the corridor, with just a sheet that doubles as both bed and blanket.
His sole means of contact with his family and friends is his mobile phone, which he charges in an electric socket on the first floor of the hospital, some distance away from the neuro ward.
"I sit beside my mobile for about half an hour while it charges," he says, plugging the charger in the socket, while hordes pass through the hospital passageway. Puran doesn´t know anyone in Kathmandu, hasn´t changed his clothes since he got here and eats half-plate meals twice a day because the money that he brought with him isn´t enough to buy full meals.
The plight of caretakers like Puran in the general ward may be dismal but the caretakers of patients in cabins don´t have it much easier either. Balbhadra Rai, who is from Baneshwar, has been waiting on his older brother Ramnarayan Rai for three weeks. Balbhadra sleeps on a bench that is less than two feet wide.
"While the patients recover, the caretakers start getting sick," says Ramnarayan Rai, the patient, who will need to spend another week in the hospital to recover from a surgery on his leg.
At least Balbhadra has a bench to sleep on; the caretakers of patients in the double cabins don´t have even this facility. Most sleep under the beds of the patients, on a foam mat. One man was found sleeping on the floor under an unused receptionist´s desk outside the ward.
Of all the guardians, the caretakers of patients in the special wards have it the worst: these caretakers, who need to stay over for the longest periods, and who have to be the most vigilant (ICU patients are usually in the most critical states), have to suffer through the patient´s long convalescence, away from the patients. Wards such as the ICU at TUTH don´t allow the caretakers to stay in the ward for more than a few moments. The caretakers of patients in these wards have no other place than the corridor to sleep in.
"Many patients in the ICU remain there for months, so we see the caretakers making makeshift homes in the corridor," says a TUTH nurse, who prefers not to be named.
Along with the difficult living conditions, relatives of patients also complain of lack of security within the hospital premises.
"Eight thousand rupees was stolen from my pocket,” says a defeated Madhusudan Paudel, as tears roll down his cheeks. “Now the doctors aren´t performing the operation on my daughter-in-law because I can´t pay the fees.”
TUTH is Nepal´s central hospital, where patients with complicated illnesses arrive for treatment from all around the country, but since it doesn´t have any facilities to house the caretakers of the patients, the caretakers sometimes face more harrowing times than do the patients they accompany.
For the caretakers who will be accompanying patients to Nepal´s premier hospital in the future, there is scant hope that they will be able to undertake their caretaking duties under more amenable conditions, even as they witness their loved ones´ sufferings. The director of the hospital admits that a hostel to house caretakers is necessary, but that measures to address that need haven´t been included in the hospital´s urgent plans.
kushal@myrepublica.com
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