 |
| Hamidia Hospital Registration area - a much thinner crowd than what we came across |
Being retiree of the Central Government I am a beneficiary of the local
dispensary of Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS). This somewhat detaches
me and others like me from the system of state government healthcare. I said “somewhat”
as we too are not entirely free to seek healthcare from any quarter. The check
is applied when new medicines or investigations are prescribed or
hospitalization is suggested. At that point of time, unless there is an
emergency, we have to go to a local State or Central government hospital for
the necessary recommendations by a specialist. Bhopal CGHS has six doctors but
none of them is a specialist.
Such an occasion arose recently and my wife and I went to the Hamidia
Hospital to visit the Orthopaedic out patients department (OPD). We were
horrified to see the crowds at the registration area. There must have been
around 500-700 people waiting for registration. Huge queues stretched from the
general, women’s and senior citizens’ counters. Since both of us could not have
stood all that while for registration because of our age and skeletal problems
we decided to call it a day deciding to try our luck at the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a central government institution.
We had been there once earlier
about two years ago and were able to visit the OPD of an orthopaedic surgeon
even though we reached the distant place around 10.00 AM. We reached this time
too around the same time only to be told that registration had been closed at
9.00 in the morning after commencing at 8.00AM. The man at the counter told us
that only 40 out-patients are registered because of limited availability of
doctors and people wait outside from 3.00AM onwards. The counter officer
suggested to us to try online registration. My wife tried that too to find to
find to her shock that no orthopaedician was available till March 2017.
Compelled as we were, we visited
the private clinic of a senior orthopaedic surgeon of the Hamidia Hospital
whose recommendations were promptly acted upon by the CGHS. The only difference
was that we had to pay the government orthopaedician a tidy consulting fee for his
labours in his private clinic. The CGHS does not act upon prescriptions of
specialists from its own empanelled private hospitals in identical circumstances
but, surprisingly, the medicinal and diagnostic recommendations of a government
doctor made from his private clinic are somehow considered sanitised enough for
it to act upon.
Such are the rules, call it hypocrisy or what you will. Another anomaly
is that while one can avail of the treatment of an empanelled private hospital
as an in-patient but one cannot do so as an out-patient. A specialist there is
good enough to deal with any number of serious and life-threatening diseases
involving costly investigations or surgical procedures but their
recommendations/prescriptions handed out from their OPDs are not acceptable.
That probably is because of governmental distrust of private hospitals because
of their frequently reported unfair, greedy and exploitative practices. But, I
am digressing.
My point was different. What I was aiming at was the utter inadequacy of
the governmental healthcare system in Bhopal. The crowds for registration at
two hospitals are indicative of that. One would be surprised if things happen
to be different in other urban centres of the state. For that matter even the
Red Cross Hospital which earlier used to appear better provided these days
wears a look of inadequacy. There too a large number of patients were seen waiting
for attention of a medicine man. Either that or there is total breakdown of
public health that produces huge number of patients crowding around government hospitals
where treatment is much cheaper. Those who can afford can go to corporate
hospitals to get treated and/or looted but the poorer sections do not have that
alternative or option.
This is what is happening in an
urban area – the capital of the state; what happens in the rural and remote
areas is any body’s guess. Only sparsely distributed health centres, with
inadequate number of physicians/surgeons and para-medics, attend to the needs
of hundreds of thousands as out or in patients. Over-population, illiteracy and
lack of awareness about sanitation and hygiene give rise to heavy incidences of
communicable and non-communicable diseases. Deaths are frequent; not being
rare, unlike elsewhere life is cheap here No wonder, the likes of Dana Majhi have to
admit his wife in a hospital 10 kms away and then walk back home lugging her on
his shoulders after she unfortunately dies.
Two governments, one each of the Indian National Congress and Bharatiya
Janata Party, have had uninterrupted runs of 10 years each in the state, yet
apparently they did not do a thing to improve the healthcare system of the
state either in the rural areas or in its urban centres. Bhopal, for example,
has a handful of government hospitals for a population of more than 20 lakh (2
billion). At best there are only half a
dozen government hospitals if you leave out the ones like those of Bharat Heavy
Electricals Ltd., Railways, Army, and the ones meant for victims of Gas Tragedy
of 1984 etc. The city has expanded practically on all sides and all this must
have taken place with the approval of the relevant government agencies. But
there is hardly any government hospital that was planned for or built in these
extended areas. One wonders what the Town and Country Planning organization and
the department of urban development/administration or, for that matter, the
department of health were doing. Apparently, the state progressively withdrew
itself from its obligation of providing healthcare to a burgeoning population
at reasonable costs and left avery large section of the population at the mercy
of the rapacious corporate and other private hospitals. They hardly can afford
the jacked up costs of such hospitals’ consultants’ fees or of medicines from
their in-house pharmacists, or, for that matter, the numerous investigations
that they mostly have conducted for raising their own revenues.
It is only now that the state elections are approaching that the state
government is talking of augmenting the healthcare facilities. They have said
that the Hamidia Hospital is going to have as many as 2000 beds. One wonders
whether its rusty and creaky administrative organization would be able to
manage such a huge establishment when it cannot manage the same hospital with
500-odd beds where replacing a broken-down old lift takes more than a year. It
also does not have either a MRI machine or a CT scan machine. The machines that
were reportedly procured for conducting angiography have hardly been put to
use.
The government is also asking the Centre to transfer the Bhopal
Memorial
Hospital & Research Centre (BMHRC) to the state. It was a very well built
hospital with well-qualified physicians and surgeons with the funds provided
from the (measly) compensations paid by the Union Carbide Ltd. After the Trust
that ran it was wound up it was tossed from one agency of the department/agency
of the Health Ministry at the Centre to another that broke its back bone and
landed it in an unholy mess. The mess that was created
 |
| AIIMS OPD |
Surprisingly, the government is aiming at big establishments when the
needs are of smaller units located in various newly established localities.
These could be like general hospitals providing the rudimentary first level of
medicinal or surgical treatment. Every sick person need not visit a multi-speciality
hospital as a large number do not need the attentions of specialists. Perhaps
this way the patients would be treated in a better manner and the
physicians/surgeons would be able to pay greater attention taking their time in
examining and suggesting treatment to them The dreadful amount of waiting that
common sick and suffering people have to undergo under present conditions need
to be immediately addressed. Whether the government is able to do it will have
to be seen. We may have to have a long wait for its reaction too.
*Photos: from internet
No comments:
Post a Comment