Jamshedpur, Jan. 28: The Raghubar Das's budget of 2017-18, tabled on January 23, has thrown up a major trauma and handed the Opposition a genuine reason on a platter to charge the government with being out of touch with ground reality.

Even as the state-run trauma centre at Baharagora along NH-33 runs for only six hours a day due to paucity of manpower, the budget has announced three new such centres, one along NH-33 itself, near the existing one, and two others along NH-2 in Koderma and NH-143 West Singhbhum.

JMM MLA from Baharagora Kunal Sarangi questioned the rationale of announcing new trauma centres when the existing one at Baharagora is barely limping along.

"The government should first depute doctors and improve infrastructure at the existing ones (the state has two, the second in Garhwa along the NH-75) before announcing more trauma centres. The announcement in the budget makes it apparent that either (health) departmental bosses don't update the chief minister on ground realities or the chief minister is bent on making a populist wish list," Sarangi, one of Jharkhand's most articulate legislators, said.

It is a fair assessment as Baharagora trauma centre, meant for critical highway mishap victims, and located close to the intersection of NH-33 and NH-6, is a mockery of what should have been. Running from 9am to 3pm without a surgeon or anaesthetist, it is barely more than a dispensary for first-aid.

When it opened the trauma centre in May last year, five years after its inauguration in 2011, the health department ordered a surgeon, an anaesthetist, a lab technician and an X-ray technician to be deputed there. Within a few months, surgeon Dr Shiv Chandrika Hansdah got himself transferred to MGM Medical College and Hospital in Sakchi for academic reasons while no anaesthetist joined the centre.

"We are yet to get a specialist surgeon or an anaesthetist at the trauma centre. After a lot of effort, we managed to have an arrangement with a local doctor Dr Rituraj Kumar (an MBBS) to man the OPD between 9am and 3pm. We have also arranged an ANM (Malti Purty), lab technician (Aditya Sahu), lab assistant (Abhijit Bag) and ward boy (Gopal Ghosh). The situation will continue like this till we get a full-time surgeon and anaesthetist," said East Singhbhum civil surgeon Dr S.K. Jha.

Director-in-chief of state health services Dr Praveen Chandra admitted manpower issues at both trauma centres in Baharagora and Garhwa. "We are yet to have a specialist surgeon at any of the two trauma centres in the state. We are making an effort for a deputation order from the government at the trauma centres as soon as possible," said Dr Chandra.

But, policemen admit that this lacunae has cost many lives. "Every month, on an average, three or four fatal mishaps take place on both NH-33 and NH-6 stretches that aren't too far away from the trauma centre. If it had been functional 24/7, many precious lives would have been saved. As of now we have to rush victims to MGM Medical College or Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur, which are 95km and 100km away," Ghatshila SDPO Sanjeev Kumar Besra said.

But, the trauma centre had always been a showpiece. The double-storey (G+1) structure inaugurated in November 2011 by then JMM's Baharagora MLA Bidyut Baran Mahto, now Jamshedpur MP of the BJP, and built on nearly 2 acres at a cost of Rs 1.32 crore, stayed under lock and key for years till May 2016.

On April 17, 2016, The Telegraph in its report Bloodspill highway minus care, had highlighted how a functional Baharagora trauma centre could have helped mishap victims on the 60km NH-33 stretch between Ghatshila and Baharagora, and the 65-km NH-6 stretch linking Baharagora and Kharagpur.

Acting on the report, state health department took steps to make Baharagora trauma centre functional in May 2016, the report of which was published in The Telegraph on May 6, 2016, Highway trauma centre on fast track.