Published On : Wed, Mar 14th, 2018

Mayo Hospital, poor man’s ray of hope, lacks vital medicines

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Nagpur: City’s Mayo Hospital, popularly called poor man’s ray of hope for good and affordable medical treatment, is fast turning “inhospitable” as life saving and other drugs have gone ‘missing’. The grave shortage of medicines, from gloves to life saving ones, is forcing needy patients to purchase them from open market at exorbitant cost.

The State Government in a move to avoid messy situation caused by purchase of medicines at different rates from different companies had decided to procure bulk drugs and equipments through Haffkine Institute. Accordingly, the Public Health Department, Medical Education Department and other concerned departments were to purchase all drugs, equipments from Haffkine Institute from August 2017. However the main problem still remains the same, the rules and criterions relating to purchases of medicine have not been finalised till to date. The move created more problems as the purchase got stalled till January 2018. Following the government decision to start purchasing of medicines through Haffkine Institute from February, the hospital-level ‘Rate Contract’ for buying medicines and equipment came to an end. This led to non-supply of medicines anyhow procured from the ‘Rate Contract’ companies. With hospitals running out of medicine stock, the patients are being asked to procure medicines from open market which is a herculean task for the masses. Government might have taken a just stand to weed out irregularities in bulk purchase of drugs but its own internal contradictions is resulting in creating a mega mess.

First gloves then only surgeries:
Around 15 minor and major surgeries are performed in Mayo Hospital daily. But since gloves are in shortage, the relatives of patients are told to first bring the gloves. Once the gloves are made available, the surgeries start, sources said.

Scramble for life saving drugs:
In the poor man’s hospital (Mayo), there is paucity of life saving drugs including antibiotics from Emergency Department to wards. The relatives of the patients had to scramble for these medicines in the event of an emergency. Several vital injections are also not available in the hospital, sources said. The patients from below the poverty line who avail medical facility at Government hospitals, are the worst sufferers. There is shortage of all major essential and life-saving drugs like the saline, cardiac medicines, anti-rabies vaccine, anti-venom for snake bites and 30-35 vaccinations which are consumed on regular basis.