Cuttack: A complaint filed before the Odisha State Human Rights Commission has sought intervention in the alleged manner, in which destitute and unidentified patients are being attended to at SCB Medical College and Hospital.
Lawyer and human rights activist Pravat Ranjan Dash filed the complaint, alleging the hospital had no separate ward for the such patients.
Treatment of such patients continues to be unorganised, and in several cases, it borders on human rights violation, Dash alleged.
The complaint, filed on May 11, cited the plight of a destitute and unidentified patient admitted to the neuro-surgery department, the details of which was published in a vernacular daily on May 10.
According to the complaint petition, the patient was allegedly first driven out because he had excreted in his clothes.
However, he was later admitted to the indoor ward following reports in the media but left to suffer in a corner without proper medical attention.
Dash said though the state government had been providing sufficient funds for destitute patients, their treatment at the hospital lacked co-ordination.
The hospital was yet to come up with a special ward for the destitute and the unidentified patients even as the district administration had pointed to its necessity after probing into the death of an Italian tourist at the hospital in December 2012.
A senior hospital official admitted the problem and said: "But depending on the disease, these unattended patients are admitted to wards of various departments and due care is taken by the hospital by providing them attendants and free medicines."
"The destitute patients, after their discharge from the hospital, are being provided rehabilitation through old age homes, short-stay homes, child-care institutions and special schools based on their need," the official said.