M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Aug 27: Palamu Civil surgeon Dr John F Kennedy has launched an all-out drive against illegal and unauthorised clinics and hospitals.
On Friday, he walked into a couple of such illegal and unauthorised clinics and hospitals at Hariharganj which is less than half a kikilometrerom Bihar. These illegal clinics and hospitals are across NH 98. The modus operandi of the so-called doctors and staff is whenever there is any raid, they immediately sneak into Bihar and thus save themselves from any legal action.
Dr John F Kennedy said when he walked into these ‘health hubs’, there was neither a patient nor a doctor. He found no license of any kind there. There is a gross violation of the clinical establishment act.
Dr Kennedy said he was told that quacks attend to the patients in some nearby laundry.
The civil surgeon reiterated that there would be no leniency to deal with such illegal operators of health hubs.
There were just some assistant-type-looking fellows lurking around these illegal and unlawful clinics and hospitals as doctors and patients keep doing vanishing tricks.
The CS has warned the assistants to inform their masters to shut down such illegal clinics and hospitals within two days, failing which there will be legal action against them.
One of the illegal hospitals was christened Lakwa hospital. It is claimed to cure the paralytic patient. Dr Kennedy said it is an open and blatant fleecing of the unsuspecting patients.
Another hospital claimed to be dedicated to kids and infants. Here too the racket of fleecing lactating mothers is rampant.
Dr Kennedy said he has been urging people to visit government hospitals and not to fall into the trap of the quacks. He said there is a strong need to launch a massive awareness campaign for people to desist and resist the temptation to visit the illegal clinics and hospitals where money is extracted for fake treatment and life is put in peril.
The NHRC team which was in Ranchi recently had taken a very serious note of this rampant problem of the proliferation of illegal hospitals and nursing homes across Jharkhand. The NHRC team is understood to have directed the state government to contain curb and restrict the rapid growth of illegal hospitals and nursing homes in Jharkhand.
Some civil society activists say like so-called English medium schools there are clinics, nursing homes and hospitals in every mohalla claiming to cure all kinds of patients ranging from cancer to HIV.
Again there are more illegal clinics claiming to cure ‘haddi nas rog’ ailments.
Sources said it is a lucrative business here in Palamu to open clinics, nursing homes and hospitals. Women throng such setups.
