Nandapur: Patients and their attendants visiting the local community health centre (CHC) in Koraput district are a distressed lot due to a lackadaisical attitude of the only doctor posted here, a report said.
The counter of the drugs distribution centre of the CHC often wears a deserted look since the physician hardly prescribes medicines that are available with the hospital, patients alleged.
While people of inaccessible regions of the district visit the health centre expecting free medicines, Debashis Padhi, a doctor of the CHC, allegedly asks every patient to buy drugs worth around Rs 1,000 from private medical stores. He is doing it deliberately and even keeps medicines (not government-supplied ones) in polythene carry bags which he sells to the patients, locals have alleged.
Several patients including Sarata Kanteri and Dasuda Alang of Malibelagaon panchayat and Sasmita Shisha, Shukra Kirsani and Keshav Khemundu of Banamaliput panchayat, who visited the hospital recently, said: “We could get only one free medicine from the hospital counter while we had to buy five other medicines from a private drugstore. It is hard to get medicines without shelling out money.”
Govind Kirshani of Hanjar village of Lamtaput block who brought his father to the CHC said he had to pay Rs70 to the hospital authorities to get a syringe for administering drips to his ailing father.
On the other hand, neither the patients nor their attendants dare to stand up to the doctor since he is the lone doctor posted at the CHC, it is learnt.
When contacted, Dr Padhi said there are no such guidelines barring him from prescribing medicines that are available in private drug stores. On the matter of selling medicines to the patients, the doctor said he sells drugs for far lesser than what the drugstores would normally charge.
PNN
