Hyderabad, January 4: The 150-year old Osmania General Hospital in the heart of the city and known for providing quality medicare to the patients from the city and several districts has been going sick for various reasons and losing its healthy reputation.
Inquiries with various hospital sources have revealed that the root cause of this malady was stated to be shortage of equipment, dearth and untimely release of funds and short supply of drugs. As performance of any hospital largely depends on these factors, said Dr N Krishna Reddy, a retired Medical Superintendent of the OGH.
During an interaction with this reporter over the factors plaguing the hospital which has a glorious past, Dr Krishna Reddy said that lack of maintenance has been responsible for its deteriorating state. Referring to the issue of user charges, which was scrapped by the State government three years ago, he said that though a paltry two or three rupees may be charged on a patient, yet it accumulates up to Rs 80,000 to Rs 90,000 in a month since a large number of lower middle class people prefer to get treatment here. He also noted that with the use of this amount, minor repairs could be done to the hospital besides procuring essential drugs on time keeping in view the delay in release of funds to the hospital.
When pointed out that the Governor, Mr E S L Narasimhan, had his dental scanning done thrice at the Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad in the recent past, Dr Krishna Reddy recalled that till the early 1980s, all VVIPs used to prefer either the OGH or the Gandhi Hospital. But now they were visiting corporate hospitals for medical checkup and treatment because the government was providing medical reimbursement to the tune of Rs 200 crores per year for the VVIPs. He noted that if the State government removes medical reimbursement facility, then there could be a reversal of this kind of situation and the olden days might come again.
Dr Reddy said that there could be a major facelift in the government hospitals in case the State government transferred the reimbursement amount of Rs 200 crores to the government hospitals. He also noted that they were planning to meet the Health Minister to request him to bring out a GO to do away with the medical reimbursement.
Citing commercialization of medical education as the reason for the lack of dedication and social consciousness among the young doctors, Dr Krishna Reddy said that the disinterest among the medicos to serve the poor was ruining the reputation of the once famous government hospitals.
Hailing the gesture of the alumni of the OGH, Dr Reddy went nostalgic and said that the renovation of medical and surgical wards was carried out in OGH thanks to the Rs one-crore donation by Dr Govind Rao, a practising in New York. Apart from this, a pediatric ICU and an operation theatre were set up at the Niloufer Hospital with another aid of Rs one crore provided by him. An electronic library, a mini-auditorium and a golden jubilee block were established over the last couple of years with the aid from the Osmania Trust set up some 20 years ago.
E Pramod Rao, NSS