BRD’s annual budget ₹152.62 per bed

Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College that tackles encephalitis and meningitis cases every year has a budget of just Rs 5.32 crore for medicines, according to the state budget figures.

This medical college, which four lakh patients visit every year, has 955 beds out of which 150 have ventilators for emergency care.

The experts of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) say that the budget per bed at the Gorakhpur medical college comes to just Rs 152.62 per bed per year.

Professor Devendra Gupta of the SGPGIMS ventilator unit says, “Expenditure of around Rs 5,000 to 8,000 per day is incurred on a ventilator patient and around Rs 1,000 per day on an average bed. So, the government must think about increasing the medicine budget.”

Dr Harsh Vardhan of SGPGIMS says, “There is little wonder that patients have to bring many medicines and surgical items from outside as hospitals don’t have the budget for them.”

The situation at some other state-run medical colleges is similar.

“Can you believe that the Kanpur GSVM medical college has a budget of just Rs 5.28 crore for medicine. This is a pathetic distribution of funds in a state which consist of 22 crore people,” says Dr PK Gupta, president of Indian Medical Association (Lucknow).

Most of the time, the plea for increasing the budget for medicines falls on deaf years but incidents like the Gorakhpur tragedy bring the attention back to crumbling health infrastructure, say the experts.