Even as better healthcare is yet to reach remote pockets of Panposh and Bonai sub-divisions, the State Government remains uncaring to the long standing demand for bifurcation of the vast Sundargarh health district creating a new Rourkela health district.
Bifurcation apart, people have been demanding that the Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) be converted into a District Headquarters Hospital and the RGH be the headquarters of new Rourkela health district.
Sources said though the Government claims that healthcare delivery system in the district has improved, but the poor patients are victims of absenteeism of doctors and other medical staff.
Except the RGH, remaining 85 health institutions of the district spread over 9,712 sq km come under the administrative control of the Sundargarh-based Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO). Due to vast areas and certain odd geographical shape, many a time it is quite difficult on the part of the CDMO to perform the tasks properly.
Intellectuals, politicians and social activists have often been complaining that monitoring of health institutions in the Maoist-hit Bonai and Panposh sub-divisions is next to zero.
They argue the doctors refuse to avail rural posting and those already posted hardly visit their workplaces. It is practically impossible for a CDMO to manage such a vast district.
The community health centres (CHCs) at Koida, lahunipara, K Balang and Gurundia of Bonai sub-division are located at 165 to 200km from Sundargarh. The primary health centres (PHCs) at Hathibari, Kuanrmunda and Birkera and CHC at Bisra are 114 to 130km from Sundargarh.
“So all the four MlAs of Panposh and Bonai sub-divisions (Rourkela, Raghunathpali, Biramitrapur and Bonai) should take up the issue again with the Government,” said noted health activist of the city Srikant Satpathy.
It is to be noted that the Health Department at a meeting in October, 2012 had rejected the bifurcation issue citing financial constraint.
Zila Parishad member of Kuanrmunda-A constituency Ivy Pyari Bodra alleged that absenteeism of doctors at rural health institutions remains a major concern.
The same opinion is shared by social activist of Bisra and Nuagaon blocks AK Azad. Bharati Mohanty who has been working for the upliftment of tribal poor in Koira region for more than one decade says the standard heathcare for the rural poor has become a day dream.
Reiterating his demand to upgrade the RGH into a DHH, former Congress MlA Pravat Mohapatra said the number of patients handled by the RGH in a year is two to three times of the Sundargarh Hospital. He also mooted bifurcation of Sundargarh health district for effective management.
Mohapatra said owing to the present situation, proper implementation of the National Rural Health Mission is also in a shambles.
A senior doctor on condition of anonymity of the RGH says in a day one doctor attends more than eighty patients on an average in outdoor because patients come here from faraway places including bordering Jharkhand. Sometimes a specialized doctor of a particular department has to manage other department.
But in the district headquarters hospital at Sundergarh, a doctor hardly attends 20-30 patients in a day in outdoor. If the RGH will be upgraded to a district headquarters hospital status then more doctors will also be posted and patients will be benefited, he opined.