M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Oct 21: Additional Chief Secretary Health Arun Kumar Singh is due to inspect Medinirai Medical College Hospital in Daltonganj and other district-level health hubs including the Sadar community health centre on October 27.
Palamu civil surgeon Dr Vijay Kumar Singh said the ACS health is due to visit on October 27 and all health hubs are geared up.
Sources said this visit cum inspection if it materialises, will be the first such of any higher official of the state health department in Daltonganj in recent years.
Like other district-level hospitals, the prime government hospital MMCH Daltonganj has its own issues ranging from a very poor doctor-patient relationship down to the inadequacy of the medical services.
Despite the upgradation of the Sadar Hospital Daltonganj into MMCH, where the medical superintendent now sits, the most tragic flaw is that it is more of a referral hospital than one capable of treating emergency cases like that of a shoot out, accident, suicide, heart attack etc.
90 percent of radical cases are referred to the higher centre RIMS Ranchi even when doctors here can handle them citing reasons in a hushed tone “Kaun museebat ley. Bhejo inko. (Who wants this problem, send them away).”
Sources said the rate of cataract surgery in the MMCH Daltonganj is too shabby and this surgery just helps the poorest of the poor most of who are left to languish. The ACS health would like to see it to believe it.
Absenteeism of senior doctors further plagues this MMCH Daltonganj and the duty roster will tell about it as to when their duties are here in the MMCH Daltonganj. Sources quipped as to why some senior faces of the doctors here are visible only between Tuesday to Friday only?
MMCH Daltonganj has a considerably good record of institutional delivery and at the same time, its labour room triggers the pain of corruption as well. The issue of blood here for needy patients is well taken care of.
Palamu health administration did a sincere leprosy case detection campaign in July and today it has 223 confirmed cases of leprosy. The district leprosy officer Dr Anil Kumar Srivastav said out of the 223 confirmed leprosy cases, 210 are adults and 13 are children. Never in the history of surveys for leprosy such detection and confirmation were done so exhaustively as this time in Palamu.
The pathology and radiology part of the MMCH Daltonganj is too bad. There is no radiologist with the outsourcer to give findings of the X-rays done. It is brought online and the wait for the X-ray report is for hours.
The district administration had to seal one ultrasound unit just because there was no specialist for it. Simple diagnostic tests like tests for stool, malaria, urine routine etc are just shelved. The condition with the CT scan facility here is also bad where no doctor has been arranged by the outsourcer. The dialysis care centre again in the hands of the outsourcer is far behind its aim as for want of the nephrologist the arteriovenous fistula is not done here in the MMCH Daltonganj for which patients are to go to Ranchi which is time taking and taxing for poor in need of dialysis.
Sources said the visit cum inspection of the ACS health will start better cleanliness of the wards of the MMCH Daltonganj from now onwards.
