SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Sept 21: All 14 medical officers (MBBS) posted at Nirsa community health centre (CHC), around 40 km away from district headquarters, were found absent during the sudden inspection by the civil surgeon (CS) during the OPD hour of patients on Wednesday.
Notably, Civil surgeon Dr Alok Viswakarma has slapped show cause notice on all absentee doctors of the CHC and announced to cut their salary if they would fail to reply with a reasonable reason for skipping duty hours.
Dr Vishwakarma made sudden inspection of Nirsa CHC at around 10.45 am. Surprisingly, only one Ayush lady doctor was seen attending OPD patients while all MBBS doctors were found absent. Civil surgeon said as per roaster, four doctors had duty in OPD but none of them were present. “Departmental action would be taken against them,” he said.
Nirsa CHC based near Jharkhand –Bengal border is considered Achilles heel of Dhanbad health department which never achieved target in any state as well as national health programmes including immunisation, family planning and other. Since CHC is in the corner of the district, senior health officer of headquarters hardly visits there for monitoring.
New civil surgeon Dr Vishwakarma, who assumed office on August 1, has begun inspection of all CHC and PHC for streamlining the health services with special focus on rural health centres.
“I was shocked to find the situation of CHC. There is no dearth of medicines as well as shortage of doctors at the centre despite patients are not attended properly,” he said.
Civil surgeon said that despite huge population in the area, merely 15 to 20 patients turn up at OPD. It looks like patients do not come for health services due to absent and indifferent attitude of doctors at CHC. However, the CHC would be shifted in the new building soon to provide better facilities to patients.
The local people of Nirsa complaint civil surgeon that since most of the doctors are outsider, they leave the centre duly after marking attendance.
