Group D employee Sanjit Kumar Sarkar writing a prescription at the health centre. Picture by Partha Biswas

Gouripur (Murshidabad), April 1: Around 500 people turn up at the health centre here every day with various ailments. But the man who examines them and prescribes medicines is not a doctor.

Although better known as “daktarbabu”, Sanjit Kumar Sarkar is a Group D employee at the Singeswari-Gouripur primary health centre.

The man, who has studied till Class X, has been the only hope in times of illness for a dozen villages over the past four years as the clinic has not had a doctor during that time.

Another Group D employee, Milan Sardar, hands over medicines to the villagers according to Sarkar’s prescrip- tions. He is the “compounderbabu”.

The chief medical officer of Murshidabad, Mangobinda Mondal, said he was aware that the health centre had no doctor. He found nothing wrong in what the general duty attendants had been doing.

“The Group D employees are doing nothing wrong. They are not carrying out any major treatment or surgery. They are just treating patients for minor ailments like fever and diarrhoea. We have told them not to refuse patients with simple problems,” Mondal said.

Mondal added that a doctor was expected to join soon.

The health centre, about 15km from the nearest hospital in Sagardighi, caters to ne-arly 20,000 villagers.

The last doctor had been transferred. No one replaced him.

Sarkar has no qualms about playing the doctor.

“I’ve gathered considerable experience about medicines from doctors with whom I have worked at the health centre for 12 years. I feel proud that I am able to help villagers who come to me with various ailments,” said Sarkar.

Besides Sarkar and Sardar, the health centre, about 225km from Calcutta, has another Group D employee and a nurse.

Nurse Sutapa Sarkar said Sanjit Sarkar referred gynaecological cases to her.

“I don’t examine the patients. I refer them to the block hospital at Sagardighi,” Sutapa, 30, added hastily.

Sardar places the requisition requests with the district medical stores in Behrampore town.

Villagers said they were helpless in the absence of any qualified doctor in the area. “Travelling to Sagardighi is not easy,” said Amod Ali, 40, of Gouripur.

“There are no metalled roads and we have to hire rickshaw vans or horse-drawn carts to take patients along bumpy village paths. For simple illnesses, we depend on daktarbabu.”