By Prashant K. Nanda
IANS
New Delhi : Frisking of visitors' handbags and food packs, locked gates, police and private security men all over the campus, no cameras allowed inside the premises: the well-known Escorts Heart Institute here, as a relative of a patient put it, "has turned into a jail".
The Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (EHIRC) is no longer patient-friendly after last week's controversial removal of renowned cardiologist Naresh Trehan from the post of its executive director.
The move was followed by a series of spats between the top doctor and the new management and even a police case was lodged against Trehan Tuesday night.
Amid all this, patients and their relatives are suffering.
"Escorts has turned into a jail, a fortress. It is no more looking like a hospital," Ranjan Dhawan, whose father will be operated Thursday, told IANS.
"How come so many policemen are inside the waiting lounge? There is a certain amount of fear among people here and the uncertainty over Trehan is compounding the whole issue," said Dhawan, who has come from Hissar, Haryana.
After Trehan was sacked Friday, the hospital management has deployed at least 200 private security men and have called some from the Fortis Healthcare facility in Noida for "better management of security".
"The situation is sensitive and we don't want to take any chances," said a security official who was earlier deployed at the Noida unit.
Fortis Healthcare had acquired 90 percent stake in EHIRC in September 2005, while Trehan holds the remaining shares.
Said, Guatam Kumar, whose father has undergone a bypass surgery at the hospital: "We are not allowed to use the emergency gate even for going out to purchase medicines. We have to walk almost one and half kilometre to reach a chemist shop.
"You can only go out of the hospital through the main gate and you have to answer all sorts of questions posed by security men and police personnel there," said Kumar, who has come from Punjab.
"What should I do, attend to my ailing father or walk for half an hour to get a prescribed medicine," he asked with remorse and disdain.
Yasmin, whose brother had undergone a surgery at Escorts, was in tears, as the popular doctor did not turn up in the hospital in the morning. "My younger brother was operated upon Tuesday but Dr. Trehan is yet to come and give me the assurance that he is fine," she cried.
Relatives of many patients said Trehan had cancelled all surgeries to be done by him and scheduled before 4 p.m. Wednesday, as he went to court.
"Those who were supposed to get operated Wednesday will now undergo the knife tomorrow and my father who has a date Thursday may miss the day. It's both emotionally and financially taxing," Dhawan said.
Meanwhile, police deployed at the hospital manhandled some patients' relatives as the latter raised voice against the ill treatment to them.
"I was asking hospital authorities to provide due care to my father, when police officials slapped me," Kumar said, as tears rolled down his cheeks.
He said at least a dozen policemen dragged him and a couple of others outside the waiting lounge and slapped him on his face, back and head.