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Baripada, Feb 28: Special rapporteur Damodar Sarangi of NHRC (East Zone) Saturday termed a Centre-aided
project which is being run for mentally-impaired patients in the district
headquarters hospital here in Mayurbhanj a complete failure.
He arrived at the hospital to review the status of the project and said this after verifying several records of the
project. During the inquiry, it came to light that though the project is in operation since 2006, records of patients are not being kept. According to norms, a card should be made for each patient and treatment and improvement records should be maintained therein. But it has not been followed.
Similarly, of the grant of `5 lakh at the beginning of the project, `50,000 has been spent on the training of doctors at Mental Health Institute. Further, funds have not been sanctioned till the end of 2013-14 fiscal as the users certificate on the expenses was not submitted to the sanctioning authorities. However, `34 lakh has been granted in 2014-15 and questions are raised whether the
objectives can be fulfilled this time.
Sarangi, after talking to an attendant of a patient, came to know that the
patients are not being provided with free medicines though the provisions are there in the project. Rehman Bibi of Shunagadia has not got any government medicine, though her son Sheikh Imamuddin has been undergoing
treatment for the past 12 years. The
patient has not been given the
physically handicapped certificate too.
The rapporteur expressed resentment over the issue and asked the chief district medical officer (CDMO) to provide all sort of facilities available under the project to the patients. Keeping the
mentally impaired patients indoors in the medicine ward also didn’t go down well with the NHRC rapporteur. He talked to the indoor patients to know about their problems.
“Many loopholes are there in the way the project is being run here and the drawbacks would be reported to the commission,” Sarangi said.
Dr Nilamadhab Rath, the director of Mental Health Institute, joined Sarangi in the inquiry while doctors and staffers of DHH were present to provide details of the project.
When contacted, CDMO Dr Chandan Murmu said, “The hospital was badly hit by the last floods in the town; hence. it posed problems to maintain the records properly.”