Berhampur: The Manav Adhikar Surakshya Manch, an organisation working for betterment of health services at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital here, on Monday resorted to beating gongs in front of the house of local MLA and BJD leader Ramesh Chandra Chau Patnaik to draw his attention to the non-functional trauma care centre in the hospital.
"The centre's building was built five years ago by spending Rs 5 crore. But, it could not start functioning because of several reasons, including non-recruitment of medical staff. The state government must look into the matter seriously," said Manch co-ordinator Abani Kumar Gaya.
"Eighteen members of our group beat the gong in front of the MLA's house for two hours in the morning. Patnaik came out of his house and discussed various issues related to the hospital with us. He has promised to take up our grievances with the administration. We have also submitted a five-point memorandum of our demands addressed to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to him," Gaya said.
Another member of the organisation alleged that they had to take road accident victims either to Bhubaneswar (171km away) or to Visakhapatnam (277km away) in Andhra Pradesh in the absence of a trauma care centre at MKCG in Berhampur. The MKCG is the only referral hospital in south Odisha and around 1,200 road accidents take place in Ganjam district alone every year.
A physician attached to MKCG admitted that they would be able to save the lives of many accident victims if the trauma care centre started operations.
The foundation stone for the centre was laid on December 23, 2006. The central government had sanctioned Rs 1.50 crore for its establishment and another Rs 67 lakh for procuring equipment.
On March 2, 2009, the then Union minister for rural development, Chandra Sekhar Sahu, inaugurated the centre in haste just before the election code of conduct came into existence.
But, neither the medical equipment were installed nor the medical staff were recruited at that time. Later, the precious medical equipment had to be handed over to other departments of the hospital, such as orthopaedics, surgery and neurosurgery, for treatment of accident victims, said another source at MKCG.
He alleged that even the building of the trauma care centre was not constructed following the central government guidelines.
Berhampur MP Siddhant Mahapatra also admitted that there were problems with the building's construction plan. "It is a central government project. But, the building plan is not correct and it requires a lots of corrective measures," said Mahapatra.
MKCG superintendent Khetrabasi Subudhi said that they needed to recruit as many as 59 staffers to run the centre.
"We need at least eight senior resident doctors, six ICU medical officers, four pharmacists, two laboratory technicians, four radiographers, 18 nurses and 15 attendants, for the centre," said Subudhi.
Subudhi said that their repeated pleas to the state government for recruitment of doctors had gone unheard.
The other demands of the Manch include immediate restoration of the CT scan machine that has been lying defunct for the last one year, installation of a digital X-ray machine, establishment of a geriatric ward, ICUs in every department and provision of at least 10 body carriers instead of two at MKCG.
