Watch: Patients complain of corruption, poor services at Bhadrachalam Government Area Hospital

But now the patients, especially the pregnant women who are getting admitted to the hospital for child delivery, are complaining of poor services as well as corruption by the staff

Kothagudem: Government Area Hospital at Bhadrachalam which once received many awards for quality health services has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
It might be recalled that the hospital has won the Central government’s Kayakalp Award four times for 2020-21, 2017, 2018 and 2019.

It stood first among the Area Hospitals in the State in terms of conducting the highest number of institutional deliveries and family planning operations in 2014-2015.

In the past spouses of several IAS and IPS officers, such as Anudeep Durishetty, VP Gautham and Sunil Dutt gave birth to children at Bhadrachalam Area Hospital. An IAS officer Snehalatha Mogili also gave birth to her child in this hospital.

But now the patients, especially the pregnant women who are getting admitted to the hospital for child delivery, are complaining of poor services as well as corruption by the staff.

Giving strength to such allegations a woman, Shravani Kumari of Besthagudem of Manugur mandal, who delivered her child in the hospital a few days ago complained of corruption at every level in the hospital.

A video message she recorded and which was posted on social media by her family members went viral. She alleged that the hospital staff demanded money for administering injections, for changing dress and for cleaning.

Shravani Kumari lamented that a female doctor and a male assistant scolded her when she complained of pain while delivering the baby. They spoke sarcastically saying that she should have gone to a private hospital, if she felt pain in a government hospital.

The lactating woman alleged that her name and her husband’s name were wrongly entered in the hospital register and when asked that staff to correct the names they asked for bribes to correct the names. The quality of milk provided to patients was also poor, she said.

On the other hand, contract sanitation, patient care and security workers serving in the area hospital are not paid wages for the past five months. Due to negligence of the contractor and officials the workers have been facing financial difficulties, CITU district vice president MB Narsa Reddy said.

The Congress government boasts of allocating huge amounts of funds to hospitals, but in practice funds are not being released. If the wages of workers are not released an indefinite strike would be launched from February 15 onwards, Narsa Reddy warned.