CHANDIGARH, Nov 24: "I can't sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I see my two daughters. How will I bring them up if my wife doesn't survive?" says 28-year-old Harjinder from Kheri village, in Patiala district, whose wife is admitted in the PGI's Coronary Care Unit.Harjinder's wife has a faulty heart valve. It can be replaced . but at a cost of Rs 2 lakh. Doctor's give her a one-in-ten chance of survival. The heart problem goes back to her childhood but Harjinder came to know of it only after marriage. Moreover, the condition had worsened since she had discontinued the treatment."We came to know about her heart problem at the time of her first delivery. She told me that her parents asked her not to mention her disease to her in-laws. If I had to leave her I would have left after our first child, but I love her . she's a wonderful person. My whole family loves her. See, it is not her mother who is here taking care of her but my mother.For past three months Harjinder and his mother have been camping in the PGI: "Ma sleeps with her in the CCU and I sleep just outide the CCU door so that whenever medicines or anything is needed, I can rush to get it," he explains. "But the security personnel treat us like animals. When they find me sleeping in the corridor or even outside on the campus, they force me to go away".As number of beds is limited, many surgery patients camp at the PGI while they wait their turn to go under the knife. Every patient has at least one attendant - sleeping in the corridors, in garages, even on the grounds.Meanwhile, half the 328 beds in the PGI's four sarais go empty because the attendants want to remain as close to the patient as possible.A bed in the sarai costs Rs 5 per night, which is beyond the paying capacity of very poor people - the kind who can afford to eat only once a day.Many of them have come from distant places to seek treatment and it is out of the question for them to travel back and forth between their home and the PGI every day to attend the OPDs. These people stay on the campus - in the corridors, or outside on the ground until the treatment is over.Sarwan Kumar (45), a carpenter from Jaipur, is under treatment for arthritis since 1993. He says: "My doctor are of the opinion that surgery can't be done at this stage; I'm on pain killers now"."I was a carpenter, but five years back due to this disease I have no money; I had to leave my work; my relatives sometimes spare me a little money. I'm here on the campus most of the time but when there is a gap of a month in the next follow-up, I go back to Jaipur".Bhola, a road-gang labourer in Ferozepur, had earned Rs 12,000 and was planning to return to his village in Bihar. But before he could leave, his co-workers fell upon him and robbed him. "They strangled me, slit my throat and left me on the road for dead," he says. Against all odds, Bhola survived and made it, first to the hospital at Amritsar and from there to the PGI.Since 1996 he is permanently camped under the Bhargava Auditorium ramp - the tracheotomy tube still protruding from his throat. "I have undergone two surgeries and a third is due. As soon as it's done I will return to my village." This otherwise able-bodied and remarkably lucky man in his 40s is utterly penniless and views the future as one big question-mark. "It is time to get my daughter married but I don't know how I will do it. I can't even afford the medicines the doctors here prescribe for me. If it weren't for the gurdwara, I would starve".PGI's director, Dr B.K. Sharma says: "This is a constant problem and I do not have any solution to this. Now when we have four sarais, people are unwilling to go there. It needs awareness on their part, we cannot force them to go".However, on the strictness by security personnel, he says: "The hospital will convert into a slum if the hospital security is not strict with them".
