The Orissa High Court while hearing a PIL recently issued a directive to the Superintendent of MKCG Medical College Hospital (MCH) to open the second gate of the MCH for the benefit of the patients and their visitors.
The PIL was filed by the Bharatiya Bikash Parishad led by its president Surendra Panigrahi. According to information available, the first gate is the main gate that faces the NH at the Medical College Square which remains open all the time, while the second gate is located in close vicinity of city’s busiest new Bus Stand.
Thousands of serious patients and their attendants who come from different rural areas of Ganjam, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Koraput, and Khurda districts for treatment usually get down in the new Bus Stand being the last stoppage and convenient to reach the hospital which is loated with in a walkable distance from the new bus stand.
Even though the second gate of the MCH is very close and at a walkable distance from the new Bus Stand, the patients are forced to take a divert route covering additional 3 km and that too, amid huge traffic via by hiring a taxi or auto that takes additional 30 minutes time.
Since the hospital authorities have closed the second gate for last several years, on some pretext or the other, it is causing much inconvenience to the patients, both in terms of cost and time which is uncalled for, said petitioner Panigrahi.
Even the serious patients who come from remote villages and far-off places of other districts by ambulance via Aska Road are forced to divert their ambulance for another 3 km because the second gate always remains closed. Sometimes there is a possibility of loss of life of the serious patients as they consume another 3 km ride as well as half an hour additional time posing a threat to their life.
It may be recalled that, the Bharatiya Bikash Parishad had been spearheading the agitation against the closure of the second gate for last few years. It had submitted memoranda to medical authorities, district administration, RDC and the Government several times in the past besides resorting to demonstration.