TOP STORIES
Crores spent on 2-day Mansa health camp
Govt evasive on who's funding the camps; Badal says there will be separate budgetary provisions from next financial year
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service
Free spectacles a crowd-puller
BIG DRAW: Long queues outside eye check-up chambers where free spectacles were being distributed, in Mansa on Sunday. A Tribune photograph
Mansa, November 4
From the next financial year, the state government will be allocating a separate budget for holding mega health camps even though it still remains a mystery as to who funded the two camps held in Badal village and Mansa.
Inquiries by The Tribune revealed that massive expenditure running into several crores of rupees was incurred on the two-day health camp that concluded here today.
Informed sources said heads of various departments were being made to bear the cost while some contribution was being made by businessmen supporting the SAD-BJP government.
The expenditure incurred on the first health camp at Badal village is still mired in a controversy. The state government has not yet gone public on how much amount was spent on it. Reports in a section of the media had mentioned that Baba Farid University, Faridkot, had borne the cost, but Vice-Chancellor Dr SS Gill denied the claim. "No, we did not pay for the camp," he affirmed.
Even at Mansa officials preferred to remain mum on how much was spent on the camp, the issue assumes significance as the infrastructure in government hospitals continues to be poor due to shortage of funds.
After taking a round of the camp, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal said in wake of the whopping expenditure incurred on holding such camps, it was necessary to earmark a separate budget. He said such camps were instrumental not only in providing quality health services to the people at their doorstep but also in effectively tracking the areas that were affected most by fatal diseases.
Bathinda Member of Parliament Harsimrat Kaur Badal lauded the district administration and the police for "successfully" holding the camp. She said with 27,000 patients visiting the camp along with at least one attendant, the organisers catered to 50,000 persons apart from hundreds of doctors, policemen, nurses and volunteers.
Earlier, the Chief Minister and Harsimrat Kaur laid the foundation stone of a drug de-addiction centre at Khayala Kalan village, to be built at a cost of Rs 40 lakh. Badal also said that he would take up the issue of tardy procurement of cotton by the Cotton Corporation of India with Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar. He claimed that the agency was not conducting its operations aggressively as its officials had so far visited only 18 of the 45 markets.
10,058 patients visit on second day
Officials claimed that 10,058 patients visited the health camp on the second day, the figure dropping by 42 per cent as compared to Saturday
A record 27,358 patients availed themselves of medical advice and treatment at the two-day camp that concluded on Sunday
On an average, 1,709 patients were examined in an hour and around 29 in a minute
Orthopaedic patients outnumbered others on both the days
The organisers provided chairs to waiting patients and the policemen worked hard to ensure that queues were maintained
Though most of the doctors advised patients to maintain a healthy lifestyle with a balanced diet, the chamber of dieticians witnessed very less queries
Only 170 patients visited dieticians for advice; no patient registered with general medicine doctors on Sunday while Saturday's count stood at 1,400
Medicine shortage
Shortage of medicines remained an issue on the second day as well
Doctors prescribed medicines apparently available in their districts rather than those available with the medicine counter at the health camp
Doctors suggested that in future camps, doctors from nearby areas only should be called so that patients could visit them for further medication, if needed
Government doctors complained that private doctors were more interested in giving their visiting cards to patients rather than treating them
"The camp may not be of much help to poor patients in case they are told to visit Chandigarh or Patiala or other district. They cannot spend on travelling," a doctor said.
Chronic patients return disappointed
Patients suffering from chronic or major ailments had to return disappointed as no breakthrough improvement in their condition could have been possible in a day. Patients like Paramjeet Kaur (right) of Jeond village, who is suffering from a chronic ailment, were in a pitiable condition. Brought on a wheelchair by her neighbhours, she said terrorists had killed her husband, who was in the Punjab Police, in 1992. "My husband laid down his life serving the state.
But, I get a mere Rs 2,500 as monthly pension…. My daughter is speech impaired. So, I have to depend on my neighbhours. I have already sold a tractor and two cows for my treatment….The camp was of little help to me," she said. Karamjit Singh, her neighbhour, claimed that they had approached several politicians for help but to no avail.
TRIBUNE EDITORIAL ON THE ISSUE. DATED NOVEMBER 6
"Mega sickness
Health camp populism amidst misery
MORE than 27,000 patients were examined or treated by around 400 doctors at the two-day “mega” health camp which concluded at Mansa on Sunday. The Punjab Chief Minister and the MP of the area visited the camp and inquired after the health of patients. A similar camp was held earlier at Badal village. This is politics of cynicism at its supreme. People are first allowed to suffer for want of care, and then succour is provided directly from the hands of “benefactors”, who are from one family and elected from constituencies in which the camps are held. The spirit behind the events was just what it has been with the ‘sangat darshans’ that the Chief Minister is so fond of holding. This is a feudal approach, where providing people their much-denied right is made to look like a favour.
The foremost damage such exercises have is the diversion of funds. Money doesn’t come from the heads meant for the purpose, which means some other sectors suffer. Then there is no accounting for how it is spent. Unscrupulous officials only await opportunities in such chaos. Also questionable is the benefit of the one-time comfort people are provided. Chronic diseases cannot be addressed at a camp — where follow-ups are not possible — and short-term diseases don’t come timed to a camp.
The Chief Minister has even proposed setting aside a budget next year for medical camps. This would amount to institutionalising an irregular system, while letting the proper channel go to seed. The need is to breathe life back into the dying medical infrastructure, rather than let doctors from private hospitals hand out business cards at farcical medical camps. Put doctors in hospitals, operators behind the few diagnostic machines that government facilities do have, and supply the medicines needed. The very fact that thousands turned up at the Mansa jamboree should have shocked the powers that be; it was proof of how many people did not have access to, or could not afford, medical attention. "
No comments:
Post a Comment