Just 5 wheelchairs for 10K patients visiting SMS hosp OPD daily

JAIPUR: Hopping with one leg as he tried to keep his plastered other leg off the ground, 14-year-old Piyush Chippa sweated and gasped on his way to the orthopaedic OPD at Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital.
His mother, who has been with him since he had a fracture in an accident, held his arm to ensure he did not fall. There was no wheelchair available for him at the hospital, one of the state's biggest.
"Since I also got an injury on my neck along with the fracture on a leg, the doctor had asked me to get a neck collar from the drug distribution counter.It has been hard for me to reach the orthopaedic OPD and the drug distribution counter. The collar was also not available there," said Chippa, a resident of Sanganer.
Close to 10,000 patients come to the OPD of SMS Hospital daily, but there are just five wheelchairs for the patients. Hundreds of patients coming to the orthopaedic, neurology, neurosurgery and cardiology departments are seen having difficulty walking. Wheelchairs could reduce their pain, but they hardly find one.
A 75-year-old woman with paralysis and unable to walk was seen taking slow steps with support from her two sons. No hospital staff was seen providing her a wheelchair.
"My mother got paralysed a month ago and cannot walk. The doctors have called us tomorrow again with test reports. Taking mother to the doctors without a wheelchair for her proves a hard task, but we are managing somehow," said Dev Karan, one of the woman's two sons.