Ambulance service, phones are almost dead

Ambulance service, phones are almost dead

By Vikas Vaidya 

Although the health services in the private sector have mushroomed in the city in the last two decades or so, those in the public sector remain rickety. This in spite of the fact that a large population of the needy depends on the public sector for basic health care needs. So pathetic is the situation in the hospitals run by the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) and even the Government hospitals, that even as simple a service as making available ambulance, phone services, are unrespnsive to the calls of the needy and leave much to be desired.
As against the claims of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) that it is providing excellent healthcare facilities, the truth is different. If one takes even the basic services like ambulance and phone services into account, then one can clearly say that NMC has failed to deliver even the basic of services.
For example, if one clicks the website created by the NMC on health, it gives an impression that healthcare facilities in the city are excellent which are actually not. This website has information regarding the number of patients attended by doctors, number of units of blood provided, various contact numbers where patients can call and get the information or call the ambulance. It has begun the ambulance service with its helpline numbers in recent past. How prompt the service is, can be known from the response one gets from those who man it. If one makes a call for ambulance, at first the phone is not picked up. If it is picked up then you are greeted in a harsh tone. If one asks for ambulance help, the general experience is, the ambulance never reaches at the destination in time.
How one can call these services as prompt? About the phones of all government hospitals the experience is no different. If one makes a call to any of the numbers mentioned in the diary of hospitals, it is a general experience that nobody picks up the phone with the ring remaining unanswered for long periods.
While NMC claims to replenish its website with updated information on a continuous basis, the website still continues to show Aseem Gupta as the Commissioner instead of Shyam Wardhane, or Atul Patne as Additional Commissioner, instead of Hemant Pawar, the two top incumbent officials. Thus the website continues to lag behind by two tenures of Municipal Commissioners. With the website displaying such glaring lacuna in its content, it is difficult to believe the authenticity of other details given on the website.
The same is the condition with phone services of Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) and Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH). Common experience is that phones are never answered at both these hospitals. These hospitals have many units with separate phone numbers. These phones are never attended to. At both these hospitals a system called Hospital Integrated Management Service (HIMS) was established. The purpose behind providing this service is that the hospitals can have the record of every patient. If a patient calls and asks for details of his treatment, a doctor can get the information with one click through the HIMS. But this is not done. The patients and their relatives are left to fend for themselves. In such conditions it is difficult to buy the claim that the city’s health service is the best in the country?