Staff enjoys garba inside hospital ward, Govt mulls action

In an insensitive act, medical staff and nurses of a government-run civil hospital here played garba with loud music inside a newly-opened Hemodialysis ward for patients suffering from kidney related ailments.
After a video showing the staff playing 'garba' in front of patients lying on their beds surfaced today, Gujarat Health Minister Nitin Patel called the incident "improper" and asked the hospital authorities to take action against the people involved in organising the dance.
Incidentally, the staff started playing garba, moments after Nitin Patel left the hospital premises in Sola area yesterday after inaugurating the Hemodialysis ward for kidney patients.

"I have learnt that some of the medical staff of that hospital had organized garba inside the newly inaugurated ward. I have taken a serious note of it and asked the hospital superintendent to serve show cause notices to those who were involved," said Patel.
"This new facility inaugurated yesterday is aimed at reducing financial burden on kidney patients. Instead of helping patients, the staff organized garba inside the ward, which is not proper at all," added Patel.
In the video, around 30 female as well as male staff members, including uniformed nurses, can be seen playing garba to loud music as patients looked on while resting on their beds.

"After the minister inaugurated the new ward, some of the staff members played garba inside the ward," said RMO at Sola Civil Hospital Dr Dilip Patel.

According to hospital superintendent Dr H K Bhavsar, action will be taken as per government order. "These staff members did not take any permission from me to organize such an event inside the ward. We will serve show cause notices to them," said Bhavsar.
Striking a different note, Dr Rajesh Vishwakarma, head of ENT department in the civil hospital said that playing music in front of the patients for around 10-15 minutes does not have any adverse effect.

"Playing garba in front of patients will not affect them if volume is not much high. As far as playing of garba in a dialysis centre is concerned, I do not think one can play DJ-like sound in such a centre... So there is no question of effect on patients' health," he said.
When he was told that garba was performed for about 20-25 minutes, Vishwakarma reiterated that it must not have made any effect on patients' physical health.
"Sometimes some patients do not like loud music due to psychological reasons, but such music do not affect patients' physical condition," he said.

A city-based garba tutor Rakesh Sompura, who runs a group called 'Chix and Rexx', believes that garba can even act as a 'musical therapy' for a person suffering from illness.
"We have instances that playing of garba in front of a patient can become a musical therapy to those suffering from mental or physical illness," said Sompura.