ARA SADAR HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT IS RELUCTANT TO PROVIDE EVEN THE BASIC FACILITIES TO PATIENTS

ARA SADAR HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT IS RELUCTANT TO PROVIDE EVEN THE BASIC FACILITIES TO PATIENTS

22-AUG-ENG 5

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA---------------------------Deputy Chief Minister, Bihar, Tezaswi Yadav recently inaugurated the newly constructed building of the Ara Sadar Hospital which has been given the status of the first Model Hospital in Bihar with latest technology and the Ara Sadar Hospital was equipped with latest equipment and it was said that now the patients would get al facilities here and need not to be referred. Despite the patients are not getting even the basic facilities and the Hospital management fails to provide facilities including bed-sheets, good beds, cleanliness and has crossed all limits of insensitivity and there is no improvement in the system even after repeated complaints. Patients are harried lot as they are not being given proper care in any ward of the hospital.

Patients are not being served food as the menu prescribed by the government and the food served is substandard.  This affects the health of the patients adversely.

The hospital management seldom provides beds to the patients even in the emergency wards causing health hazard to the patients who are facing a lot of problems and inconvenience even after spending of lakhs of rupees for their facilities. Bed-sheets visible on some beds are very dirty and even torn.

The government plans to change bed-sheets of beds daily for the convenience of the patients regarding cleanliness and colour of bed-sheets is fixed according to the day so that there is no laxity in cleaning the bed-sheets but the hospital management is not providing day-wise bed-sheets to the patients.

Most of the medicines are not available at the Ara Sadar Hospital and the hapless patients are forced to purchase them from the outside at expensive prices which causes financial hardship to poor patients. Besides, doctors are reluctant to prescribe generic medicines and the poor patients are forced to buy costly medicines from outside. The family members of patients at the Ara Sadar Hospital said that doctors are seldom to prescribe generic medicines as they cannot get handsome commission on them. Though the central government has launched Prime Minister Jan Aushadhi Yojana to provide affordable medicines to the patients and even the State Government ordered the doctors to prescribe generic medicines otherwise their registration and license would be cancelled but the recalcitrant doctors are unmoved.

In addition to this, doctors are reluctant to come to the wards to regular check-up of patients and many times it happens that the doctors do not come even when called whereas according to the rules, there should be regular check-up of the patients in the morning and evening.

Patients are not getting pathological facilities including X-rays, Ultrasound and many other tests. The illegal Ultrasound, X-ray centres are running on the campus of the Ara Sadar Hospital and the patients have no option but to get these facilities by paying a lot of money.

There is water shortage in many wards and this causes a lot of trouble to the patients even in this summer season. Filth and garbage litres on the campus of the Ara Sadar Hospital including wards adversely affecting health of the patients and whenever senior officials of the health department or the district administration visit the hospital, the entire hospital campus is spruced up.

Patients are forced to defecate in the open as the toilets are locked at the Ara Sadar Hospital though the government has launched campaign against defecation in the open and the Bhojpur district administration has declared Ara as Open Defecation Free (ODF).

According to the Electricity Department, power is made available in Ara for 20 to 22 hours and power is regularly provided to the Ara Sadar Hospital despite lot of money is spent in the name of generator.