Corruption in hospital exposed

Nalgonda: The ground reality that one will find in the government hospitals is quite contrary to the boasting by both Central and State governments of providing best services free of cost to women and child before and after delivery. The governments are spending crores of rupees on publicity about safe deliveries, expert doctors and caring staff.

A victim complains to the Collector in public

But it seems that in addition to labour pains, the women were getting other pains due to lack of facilities and corruption in the hospital. The level of corruption among the maternity ward staff of Nalgonda District Headquarter Hospital came to light when a victim complained to District Collector P Satyanarayana Reddy about the corruption of the ward staff, in the presence of Hospital Superintendent and others.

The incident took place when the Collector came to the hospital to inaugurate a TB testing machine at TB hospital, located on the District Hospital premises in Nalgonda town on Thursday, on the occasion of World TB Day. The victim, called Satyam, resident of Puttapaka village of Narayanapuram mandal in the district, vented out his anguish to the Collector.

He said that he admitted his wife in the district headquarters hospital three days ago for delivery and she gave birth to a boy. “I thought that there will be free services in the government hospital. But to my surprise within three days I was forced to shed about Rs 2,000. Staff of maternity ward and operation theatre charged me for rendering services,” he said.

The maternity staff has a special menu for collecting bribe. The husband has to give Rs 500 if his wife gives birth to a male baby and Rs 400 for female baby. They even charge Rs 100 per shift for changing the infant’s clothes and bed sheets, he alleged. Satyam said he paid Rs 200 to the staff concerned for shifting his wife from the operation theatre to the maternity ward.

With tears and bowed hands, Satyam appealed to the Collector and the hospital authorities to take stringent action against the corrupt staff for the sake of the poor whose pockets couldn’t permit them to satisfy the demands of corrupt employees. The Collector was stunned and asked him to disclose the names of the corrupt staff.

But Satyam said he doesn’t know their names but could recognize them in person. The Collector ordered Hospital Superintendent Dr Amar to look into the matter of corruption charges of maternity ward, operation theater staff and take necessary action if anyone found guilty. It was alleged that apart from maternity ward, corruption was rampant in other wards in the District Headquarter Hospital also.

There were allegations that the staff forcibly charge the patients for various free services in the 5 Area hospitals, 10 urban health centers and 71 PHCs in the district.