UP HOSPITALS STRICKEN BY APATHY
Four years ago, the district hospital at Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh added a trauma centre at the cost of Rs 15 crore. The new facility battled operational hiccups and a shortage of doctors from day one and could never serve its purpose. Now, it’s fully functional—as a police outpost. The patient examination room at the centre’s entrance is the office of Pratap Singh Lodhi, the outpost incharge. The wards have been turned into living quarters for policemen; the postoperation ward has become a dump yard. The ramp leading to the first floor is being used to park police motorcycles. Beds and medical equipment lie locked in the Xray room. The apathy is glaring and so is the waste of public money. Kannauj MP Subrata Pathak, of the BJP, and Anil Dohre, the Samajwadi Party (SP) MLA from Kannauj Sadar, blame each other for the failure to appoint medical staff at the trauma centre. Krishna Swaroop, the chief medical officer (CMO) of Kannauj, offers hope, but no timeline. “There has been correspondence with the state government. Staff will be deployed and the trauma centre will become operational soon,” says Swaroop. Defunct hospitals dot several districts of UP. Of the total 165 district hospitals, six with 100 or more beds are closed. In over 50 hospitals, one or more specialised facilities are not operational due to shortage of staff. It’s an alarming reality to contend with when the state is battling a rising number of Covid cases. According to the health department, as of August 18, UP had reported 50,242 active Covid cases and 2,585
deaths, including two cabinet ministers of the Yogi Adityanath government. The total cases numbered 109,607 as of August 18.
In such a situation, every additional hospital could have made a difference, if only the state’s successive governments had completed projects on time and made them operational. A 220-bed cancer hospital set up in 2016 at the Government Medical College in Kannauj remains shut as staff has not been appointed. OPD (out-patient department) services were discontinued in the first year itself and radiotherapy facilities did not take off even though approvals were secured in 2018. A 130-bed cardiology wing that came up the same year is also closed. Navneet Kumar, principal of the medical college, has written to the state administration, requesting urgent recruitment of staff.
Eight years into construction, a four-storey ancillary facility that would have added 200 beds to the 100-bed district hospital in Banda is far from complete. Started by the SP government in 2012, the project cost has shot up by 30 per cent, from Rs 56 crore to Rs 74 crore. Banda divisional commissioner Gaurav Dayal has written to the state government, seeking the additional funds. If and when the funds come in, it will take at least another nine months for the new facility to be completed.
“Most governments focus only on the construction of hospital buildings, not on appointing medical staff. As a result, brand new hospitals become white elephants,” says Ramesh Chandra Gupta, a former government engineer involved in the construction of hospitals in the state.
In Kumarganj near Ayodhya, a 100bed hospital project, initially estimated to cost Rs 9 crore, got completed two years behind schedule, in 2012. The cost overrun was to the tune of Rs 11 crore. The hospital is facing an acute shortage of staff, with only one doctor manning the OPD against the sanctioned strength of 25. Similarly, the carpet city of Bhadohi has a 100-bed government hospital, but no doctors for the past two years. It is not operational.
UP has 853 community health centres, 4,300 primary health centres and 21,000 health sub-centres. The crumbling health infrastructure is reflecting in the management of Covid. On August 11, chief secretary Rajendra Kumar Tiwari was at the Covid command centre in Kanpur and handled a complaint. The caller said her husband was critical at Kanpur’s Kanshiram Hospital but the hospital authorities were ignoring her plea to shift him to Hallett Hospital in the same city. Tiwari ordered the removal of the chief medical superintendent of Kanshiram Hospital. On August 9, the same hospital witnessed great commotion following the death of four Covid patients.
Reports of negligence in the treatment of Covid patients have also come in from Agra, Mathura, Bulandshahr, Lucknow, Aligarh and Varanasi districts. The administration says action has been taken against all errant health officials.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had, on June 20, ordered that doctors be relieved of administrative work and made available to fight Covid. However, at the office of the Directorate of Medical and Health Services in Lucknow, over 60 doctors remain assigned to clerical jobs. In the Lucknow CMO’s office, two ophthalmologists are on administrative duty as deputy CMOs, while a cancer specialist and an ophthalmologist are working as additional CMOs.
“Inter-departmental coordination for Covid management has gone haywire in UP after the lifting of lockdown restrictions,” says Ramesh Kumar, former additional director in the state health department. “Officials are out to humiliate each other. In many districts, tussles are on between district magistrates and health officials. All of this has undermined the efforts to tackle Covid-19.”
D.S. Negi, director general medical and health, says he has asked for a status report on unutilised hospital buildings from all districts. “These hospitals will be started on priority. They could even be converted into Covid quarantine centres as per the need,” he says. To hire doctors quickly, walk-in interviews are being held. “We are also planning to shift doctors from districts with fewer Covid cases to those with a high number of Covid patients.”
165
District hospitals in Uttar Pradesh
6
District hospitals with 100 or more beds are shut. In over 50 hospitals, one or more specialised facilities are not operational due to staff shortages
`15 CRORE
Project cost of the trauma centre at the Kannauj district hospital, which has been repurposed as a police outpost