State Health, Medical and Family Welfare will be starting more 28 Malnutrition Treatment Centres (MTCs) across the State by October 2. Unfortunately, those already working in the districts like Ranchi, Sahebganj, Dumka, Godda, Dhanbad, latehar and Deoghar are suffering from low bed occupancy of patients.
Adding fuel to fire, state government has utilized a sum of only Rs 25 lakhs out of the total expenditure budget of Rs 7 crores allotted from the month April to June on the overall districts wherein MTC is already functioning.
The drawback was disclosed during a review meeting among State Health, Medical and Family Welfare Rajendra Prasad Singh, Principal Secretary K Vidyasagar, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) Director Dr Tulsi Mahto, 24 District Civil Surgeons, District Civil Surgeons, Assistant Chief Medical Officers (ACMOs) and Block Programme Managers on Wednesday. Godda shows the highest expenditure used among this finance with 10.94 per cent spending used for MCT cases. For the same purpose, Dumka district on the other hand, records almost zero percent. State capital Ranchi too records poor financial performance here with 1. 37 per cent money spent.
Annoyed with this poor data entry fact, Vidyasagar instructed all the health employees to be serious about the proper usage of MCTs. Notably, Jharkhand ranks the second position in the national chart of malnutrition cases after Madhya Pradesh. Apart from this failure, there are around 202 constructed infrastructures standing unutilized till date in several blocks under districts like Chatra, Hazaribagh, Bokaro, Palamu, Pakur, Dhanbad, Sahebganj, Ranchi, Giridih, Khunti and Simdega. “All such infrastructure must be functional by September 15 at any cost so that the purpose behind setting these health based buildings is implemented in reality,” said Vidyasagar.
Vidyasagar further stressed on following the Food Safety Act by the ACMOs in the state which at present is on a low status. Government health officers informed that only nine Public Health Centres have collected food samples in order to ensure Food Safety Act. High Court is supposed to review such food samples done as a special task in September month. “Just after 10 days, this situation will be countered in the High Court. It is high time to take such law implementation seriously,” Vidyasagar said.
State Health sector has also failed to frame a regular Detailed Contingency Bill (DC Bill) at every district after the year 2006 to 2007. According to Vidyasagar, Chief Secretary RS Sharma is to hold a meeting on regularizing this DC Bill as his department is the third one under the state government departments incapable in producing such bills.
As far as the regularization of Para-Medicos is concerned Ramgarh, Godda and Gumla have succeeded in sending the mentioned list. Remaining District Civil Surgeons were asked to send their list to the health department at the earliest.