GU Hospital Fails To Treat Snake Bite Victim; Students Protest

Students of Gauhati University surrounded the GU Hospital and protested against the lack of basic amenities on Friday. The students sat outside the in-campus hospital in protest.

Slogans were raised criticizing the university authorities as well as the health department.

Notably, the issue came to the fore when a student suffered a snake bite inside the university campus. When the student was rushed to GU Hospital, it could not provide basic first-aid.

Hospital authorities acknowledged the matter and accepted the lack of required resources. "The GU Hospital is functions as a primary healthcare facility. We face certain limitations in terms of the infrastructure, and facilities here. Currently, we have the common medicines, however, unfortunately, we could not provide a student anti-snake venom today," an official said.

He added, "The thing is to keep anti-snake venom specialized place like ICU is required along with trained staff. Doctors have to exercise extreme caution while administering it. We raised the issue of keeping it here around two to three months ago, however, currently, we do not have the facilities to store it here."

The victim student had to be then taken to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and is currently undergoing treatment. Doctors said that the student's condition is critical largely due to not receiving immediate treatment.

This led to the university students staging a protest outside the GU Hospital. They demanded that better amenities be provided to the hospital for improved treatment facilities.

"When the victim was brought here [GU Hospital], there was no option for treatment. We had to rush to the nearby Ayurvedic Hospital, and even there the required treatment was not available. The student was then referred to GMCH. We have previously raised demands for adequate amenities, but the authorities did not take notice," a protesting student said.

"We had to protest to bring the issue before the authorities. They have agreed to make the required amenities available here within the next week. A lot of basic first-aid materials are not found here so immediate intervention is must," he added.

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