GOALPARA,Oct 25 � Goalpara Civil Hospital has been playing a key role in rendering better health services to the patients of, as well as outside the district and on an average 500 people come for treatment daily and the occupancy rate in the hospital is between eighty to ninety per cent.
While the responses from some of the people coming for treatment are positive and do not have major complaints against the services rendered by the doctors and hospital staff but some disgruntled patients said that they could not do sonography due to the absence of a radiologist and it needs to be mentioned here that this premier health centre does not have a radiologist and a dermatologist too for which generally, the poor patients are not able to get affordable treatment.
Talking to this correspondent Bipin Rabha, Superientendent, Goalpara Civil Hospital said that though the hospital has all the facilities including a sonography machine but the absence of a radiologist since the last 11 years has affected mostly the poor patients as they have to pay between Rs 500 and Rs 1000 for getting these services from private clinics which otherwise is available for only Rs 200 in the Civil Hospital.
Though this matter was reported to the concerned authorities but no appropriate action has yet been taken for providing a radiologist and a dermatologist in the hospital. Moreover, he rued the fact that though the pathological laboratory in the hospital performs most of the routine tests but the strong presence of middlemen who solicit many innocent patients comming from rural areas to some of the private diagonistic laboratories in the town whose credibility of tests results is questionable, has made health care for the poor a costly affair and alleged that some of these laboratories are operating without proper specifications.
According to hospital sources, the hospital can accommodate only 174 patients and there is a perennial shortage of hospital staff including doctors and nurses as only 30 ANMs and the GNMs are on the rolls against the minimum requirement of 70 nurses. He also pointed out that though the infrastructure facilities have been upgraded but the simultaneous staff requirement has not been upgraded following which most of the doctors and nurses have to work overtime to treat a large numbers of patients.
Some doctors are of the opinion that the operation theatre (OT) in the hospital needs to be upgraded to provide better facilities to the patients as the OT is congested and has space for only three beds but at present, only two beds are funtional and fiitted with necessary equipment. Due to the inflow of patients from the nook and corners of the district as well from neighbouring areas like Nagarbera (Kamrup), Barpeta, Bongaigoan and sometmes even from Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts, the space has become congested and number of surgeries performed in the hospital has shown a progressive increase and rough estimates shows an average monthly figure of seventy numbers excluding emergency cases.
Talking on the condition of anonymity, a senior medical official said that he found doctors were absent from duties at Vadahpur and Harimura State dispensaries during a recent visit and he also opined that an effective mechanism should be evolved to check into this irregularity in the State dispensaries located on the pheripery. Moreover, he also said that most of the private pathology laboratories, private dental clinics, pharmacies and some health care establishments in the district do not have proper biomedical waste disposal system and wastes like disposal syringes, bandages etc., are thrown in the open without taking adequate precautions posing health hazards to the general population.