Government hospitals lack water, toilet facilities: NGO

The findings highlighted lack of clean drinking water and toilet facilities, rampant corruption, delay in treatment in tertiary care hospitals while the UPHCs saw low utilisation, due to doctor’s availability and inconvenient timing.

A volunteer-driven social audit was conducted by Arappor Iyakkam surveyed 250 patients/attendants across tertiary government hospitals including Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Stanley Medical Hospital, Kilpauk Medical College and Hospital, Government Royapettah Hospital, Government Maternity Hospital, Regional Institute of Ophthalmology and Government Ophthalmic Hospital and Gosha hospital and a survey of 110 patients across 26 urban primary healthcare centres.

Jayaram Venkatesan, Convenor, said that tertiary hospitals faced problems such as rampant corruption and delay in treatment. “The hospitals had good infrastructure as well as qualified doctors and nurses. But 49 per cent of the patients had to pay a bribe for hospital services such as stretchers and other such basic requirements.

The price ranged from Rs 10 to 1,000. There were no proper toilets and clean drinking water availability. 45 per cent of the respondents said that they had to wait for a long time to access treatment.

In addition, there was no place for poor families to stay in the hospital, if they come from other parts of the state,” he added. In the UPHCs, there was a low utilisation. “The timings are inconvenient for most people. 

The guidelines state that these centres should be open from 12 pm to 8 pm but the out-patient timings are not clearly specified. In some places, it is from 9 am to 12 pm or even shorter.

Many said that they go to private doctors as the UPHCs are not open in the evening. Doctors were absent in 23 per cent of UPHCs, where our team visited. This results in low utilisation in 61 per cent of UPHCs, where less than 10 patients visited in an hour,” he said, adding that in almost 81 per centof the centres, the scan facilities were either unavailable or the machines were not in a working condition. Kasim Basith, Joint Convenor, pointed out that there should be a biometric system of attendance for the doctors. “However, despite the presence of the facility in some of the hospitals, they are not being used to monitor the doctor’s attendance,” he said.