Touts rule roost at MKCG

BERHAMPUR: Touts rule the roost at MKCG Medical College and Hospital (MKCGMCH) here owing to rampant mismanagement and inefficient administration.

Patients visiting the largest referral hospital of Southern Odisha are at the mercy of middlemen, who, at the behest of some specialist doctors, coerce them to visit private hospitals and clinics for better treatment. Since most patients and their attendants do not want to undergo the torture of long waiting hours and absence of facilities, they are lured to private clinics where diagnostic tests and treatment are  pricey. The patients have to cough up huge amount of money at private health care centres for tests that can be conducted free of cost at the hospital.

Their woes do not end there. Most private pathology centres fleece the patients by conducting more tests than required. In case of private clinics, hospitalisation and costly medicines drain the poor patients of their hard-earned money.

Consider this. The hospital has two Niramaya centres where medicines are supplied free of cost. While one of them remains closed on most days, the other has around 100 varieties of medicines against 572 such centres are required to have in their inventory. Most patients are clueless about their rights and since desperate times call for desperate measures, they buy medicines from pharmacies.

Of all the departments at the hospital, the Gynaecology department is the worst hit by mismanagement. While most gynaecologists spend most of their time in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar on different assignments, the ones here are focused on attending patients at their clinics.

In order to check absenteeism, the Medical Council of India (MCI) had installed bio-metric attendance machines at 26 locations in the hospital in 2017. However, 16 such machines are lying defunct. The newly posted doctors do not even have to worry about their attendance as their finger prints are not yet recorded by the authorities. What’s worse is that no action has been taken against some doctors who were found absent from duty during surprise visits by higher authorities.

The management of the hospital is in the hands of a committee headed by RDC (Southern Division). However, the panel’s role has been confined to meetings. The apathy of the management can be gauged by the fact that the hospital is functioning from a dilapidated building even as 12 new multi-storied buildings, including five for super-speciality departments, are ready for use. Sources said the hospital has no dearth of funds and has adequate support staff. However, patients visiting the facility with high hopes have to suffer due to mismanagement and lack of monitoring by officials concerned.

The hospital authorities, however, said that they have apprised the State Government of the problem of vacant doctor posts.  The problem of biometric system has been brought to the notice of MCI, they added.