Hyderabad, April 18: Lack of planning and chaotic manner of conducting patient inflow is giving stressful times to Arogyasri and general wards patients at Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). Arogyasri and general patients have little option but to spend nearly ten hours in a day just to meet a doctor and purchase medicines in the hospital.
Thanks to just two counters for Arogyasri, patients and their relatives line up in front of the counters from 6 a.m. onwards in the hospital. Most of the Arogyasri card holders are from districts and are ill-informed about formalities like submitting photocopies of insurance cards, identity cards and previous medical prescriptions of the patient.
“They have not provided photocopying machines on the hospital premises. Photocopying shops located outside open after 10 a.m. and by that time we lose vital time. We were not able to finish the formalities on time and eventually lost our bed to someone else. We had to wait for one more day to admit my relative,” complains T. Prakash, a relative of a patient.
Similar are the travails of general and CGHS patients at outpatient wards. “It is mandatory for outpatients to wait for at least six hours. There are no additional counters and doctors. If a patient comes at 8 a.m. then he will leave the hospital after 2 p.m.,” said G. Madhusudan Rao, a CGHS patient.
There has been a steady demand from patients for more counters, wards and doctors at the outpatient department. “We have complained to them several times. They say they don’t have funds to computerise outpatient department. When we insist they ask us to come in the evening clinics which are costly,” said another patient P. Lakshmi.
In its attempt to provide subsidised drugs, government had recently inaugurated a medical shop Jana Aushadi on the NIMS campus promising discounts up to 40 per cent to patients on every purchase.
“The medical shop invariably does not stock the medicines prescribed by NIMS doctor. They try to substitute the prescribed drug with another one. How can we take another drug?” asks retired Government employee Bheem Raju.
—Agencies