Staff shortage, medicine crunch hit Basthi Dawakhanas across Hyderabad

Basthi Dawakhanas in Hyderabad are facing staff shortages, delayed salaries, medicine shortages and long waits for diagnostic results. Employees say these problems are affecting morale and patient care, while patients are increasingly forced to depend on private pharmacies and diagnostic centres.

Hyderabad: Rakesh, a contract employee with the designation of support staff at a Basthi Dawakhana in the Dammaiguda-Nagaram area, tosses the patients’ register book on his table with frustration. The medical officer (duty doctor) is attending an official meeting, and the nurse is on long leave, leaving him all alone to handle the patients.

Rakesh is unhappy, not because the doctor and nurse are away, but because he has yet to receive his salary of Rs 13,000 per month, which has been pending for the past three months. Rakesh can’t help himself, as he vents his frustration on the patients, who themselves are angry because there’s no doctor and their monthly blood pressure and diabetes medications are out of stock.

---

“How can you expect me to stay motivated? There is a perennial staff shortage, chronic medications for BP and diabetes are not available all the time, and we don’t get our salaries on time, which is forcing us to take loans from private lenders. Blood test results take at least three and sometimes four days, which makes patients angry. They are insisting that we submit our attendance ‘online’ every day but do not pay our salaries on time. How can you expect to keep a positive outlook and maintain quality medical care?” Rakesh explodes.

There are anywhere from 100 to 150 such support staff in the Greater Hyderabad area who are yet to receive their salaries for the past three months.

The reasons for the gradual erosion of quality of health care at Basthi Dawakhanas in Hyderabad over the past year are universal. There is a perennial crunch of human resources, shortage of medicines, inordinate delays in blood tests, unsanitary conditions, and demoralised workers who are not paid on time.

“When Basthi Dawakhanas were launched, we received handheld devices and free WiFi to enter patient records, which saved a lot of time. These days, we are doing it in registers and patient notebooks. Almost all Basthi Dawakhanas here have only medicines for fevers and colds. We have nearly 10,000 diabetics and BP patients registered in our Basthi Dawakhana, but they don’t get all their medicines due to inordinate delays. The doctors are forced to advise them to buy outside,” says another employee in the Moula Ali area.

During the initial days, the results of the diagnostic tests used to be released in one day directly to the cell phones of patients. “Those days are gone. For a simple blood test, it takes at least three days for the results to come. Even patients are now habituated, because they don’t have options, as private diagnostics are expensive,” says Kumar, another field-level worker from a Basthi Dawakhana in the Nagaram area.