The Niramaya free medicine distribution scheme of the State Government has gone kaput in the Gajapati district headquarters hospital here. Besides, the poor patents are denied proper healthcare as the doctors do not reach the hospital on time and attend the patents properly.
Recently, in a dog bite case, the poor patient did not get the medicines, injections and syringes prescribed by the doctor. When the patient did not get any help from the pharmacist counter, his relatives raised a ruckus but it yielded no result. The pharmacist simply said there was no supply by the Government and ignored the patient.
When this correspondent tried to know if the other patients undergo the same fate or they get medicines, the result was shocking. Most poor patients are turned away by the authorities on the pretext of non-supply of medicines. Since most poor patents come to the hospital expecting free treatment and medicines, the hospital hardly lives up to their expectation, it was found.
Due to this, the public is very upset against to the hospital administration. On November 14 last, when this correspondent had gone to the hospital to see if the doctors and staff turned up for duty on time, it was found that many doctors had not arrived at the hospital when a big rush of patents had already taken place. The Doctor Room was open but the doctor was not available until 11:40 am while patients from very far-off places were waiting since the previous night. Sunita Kumari was one such patient who was in the queue to see the doctor but in vain.
Ironically, this was the situation at the DHH, when just a couple of weeks back, the Government departments observed the Vigilance awareness week to be honest.