Railway staff unhappy with medicare at Danapur hospital

PATNA: Danapur Railway Hospital is one of the oldest hospitals of Indian Railways catering to the needs of about 14,000 railway employees and 6,000 pensioners of the Danapur division of East Central Railway (ECR). At present, it is providing medicare to about one lakh patients, including dependents of railway employees.

But, many serving and retired employees complain the hospital lacks medicines and there is no doctor to attend to emergency patients after 7pm. Out of 17 doctors, only three stay at Khagaul. No female doctor stays at Khagaul to attend to emergency maternity cases. Most of the doctors, including the anaesthetist, reside in Patna and on emergency call they take about an hour to reach Danapur, said some railway employees.

Hospital's chief medical superintendent (CMS) Dr G N Panda admitted most of the doctors are living in Patna as they have not been provided railway quarters at Khagaul. The hospital would function normally during night if quarters are allotted to doctors at Khagaul. Panda said the hospital's indoor capacity has been reduced to 160 beds after the establishment of railway superspecialty hospital in Patna. "The Danapur railway hospital has been witnessing huge rush of patients daily. While the occupancy rate of indoor beds has come down drastically to 50 patients only, about 300 to 400 patients visit the outpatient department (OPD) daily," he said, adding there is no paucity of medicines and the hospital has an annual budget of Rs 1 crore for medicines.

According to a senior divisional medical officer of the hospital, this hospital gets medicines in bulk from the ECR's chief medical director office annually. It is performing all kinds of surgery. But, it has only one ambulance and urgently needs one more. The pathology department is also in need of sophisticated equipment . About 7,000 routine tests are carried out in the department per month, he said.

Railways has permitted the hospital to refer emergency cases to private nursing homes for better treatment of railway employees and their family members. The hospital has tied up with Patna-based Rajeshwar Hospital, Ruban, Mahavir Cancer Sansthan and Jeevak Heart Hopsital in this regard, the CMS said.