Hospital do boast of 24x7 services but a look at the facts and the statistics of deaths during weekends and weekdays, one gets a feeling that it just not true.

DO TWENTY-FOUR seven services actually work in the emergency services? Given some facts, one tends to believe, they don’t. Many studies now have established that heart patients suffering cardiac arrest at night or on the weekend are less likely to survive than those who have a heart attack during weekdays or weekday evenings. The above findings were true even for paralysis patients, treated on the weekends and found it to be deadlier than those, treated on a weekday.

“The same is true for India,” said Padma Shri & Dr. B.C. Roy National Awardee, Dr. KK Aggarwal, President, Heart Care Foundation of India. During most holidays and at night, efficient staff and doctors may not be available specifically on the weekends.

He said that bad time to get admitted in the hospitals is weekend, holidays, especially Diwali, Holi, Xmas and New Year’s eve, all nights, early morning period, full moon period and winter.

As per a study in Journal of the American Medical Association, hospitals simply don't work the same at night as they do during the day. The poor survival on nights and weekends is due to a delay getting critical procedures or a delay in diagnosing the cardiac arrest in the first place. At night even a difference in seconds, makes a significant impact.

Up to 98,000 preventable in-hospital deaths occur every year in the United States, and the rate of medical errors is higher at night.

The study analyzed survival rates for 86,748 adults who had suffered cardiac arrest events in one of 507 hospitals participating in the American Heart Association's National Registry of Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. Survival was divided into hourly time segments, with day/evening specified as 7 a.m. to 10:59 p.m., night as 11 p.m. to 6:59 a.m., and weekends as 11 p.m. Friday to 6:59 a.m. Monday. Overall survival was 14.7 percent for nights/weekends, and 19.8 percent for weekdays.