PATIENTS ARE DEPRIVED OF BASIC FACILITIES DUE TO NEGLIGENCE OF THE OFFICIALS CONCERNED

PATIENTS ARE DEPRIVED OF BASIC FACILITIES DUE TO NEGLIGENCE OF THE OFFICIALS CONCERNED

18-SEP-ENG 1

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA----------------------Ground realities belie the tall claims of State and Central governments to provide all types of facilities to the patients at the hospitals and the hapless patients are left on the mercy of god.

So far as the Ara Sadar Hospital is concerned, the patients here are not getting even basic facilities like clean bed sheet, drinking water, fans, sanitation, lavatories, generic medicines, pathology and others and the hospital management failed to provide them to the patients and has crossed all limits of insensitivity. The hospital management is not ready to mend its way despite several complaints and the poor patients have to bear the brunt of negligence. Toilets are chocked and filled with filth and garbage and the patients are forced to go the open for loo.

The Jivika Didi has started kitchen on the campus of Ara Sadar Hospital with the view to supply nutritious food to the patients but the patients are not provided food as per the menu prescribed by the government. The food given to the patients is also of sub-standard and this is having a bad effect on the health of the patients.

While the government has launched a scheme to change the bed sheets daily for the convenience of the patients by improving the cleanliness system and for this the colour of the bed sheets has been decided according to the day but the scheme is almost failure at the Ara Sadar Hospital and the hospital management is providing bed sheets to the patients according to the day. Not to speak of general wards, even in the emergency wards, patients are not given bed sheets due to which their heath is being adversely affected and the patients have to face the brunt of non-availability of facilities even after spending of lakhs of rupees. Almost all the beds have no bed sheets and even if some beds have bed sheets, they are in very and torn condition but the hospital management is nothing to do with it.

The state government has directed the doctors to prescribed generic medicines with a warning to cancel their registration if they do not follow the instruction and the Central government has launched the ambitious Prime Minister Jan Aushadhi Scheme for the benefit of the poor patients so that they could get medicines at affordable prices, the patients have to buy expensive medicines from outside as they are not available at the hospital counter causing a lot of problems for the poor patients and even the doctors are reluctant to prescribe generic medicines and rather they discourage it. 

Besides, doctors do not come to the wards at the Ara Sadar Hospital for regular check-up of the patients. Many times it happens that even when called, the doctors do not come whereas as per rules, the patients should have regular check-up twice in a day i.e. in the evening and also in the evening.

The Ara Sadar Hospital has not pathological, X-ray, Ultrasound and other facilities but the private pathological, X-ray and Ultrasound centres are doing a brisk business illegally with impunity right under the nose of the hospital management and the poor patients have to pay a lot of money for any pathological examination.

Again, drinking water is not available in many wards causing a lot of problems to the patients. Filth and garbage and even the medical waste reign the entire hospital premises including wards which is adversely affecting health of the patients. Despite the fact that the sanitation responsibility is given to an NGO it has no meaning. Whenever a senior official of the district or the health department visits the Ara Sadar Hospital the entire premises is spruced up. The toilets on the Ara Sadar Hospital remain locked due to which the patients cannot use them and are forced to defecate in the open though the government has launched campaign against defecation in the open and the Ara has been declared ODF.

According to the electricity department, power is available for 20 to 22 hours daily and that too regular power is supplied to the Ara Sadar Hospital, even after this a huge amount is spent in the name of generator and the reason best known to the officials.