ONGOLE: Though it is designated as the Prakasam District Government General Hospital, medical and health services at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) Hospital at Ongole have been on the decline for some time now. At present, RIMS has been suffering from severe financial troubles and is unable to facilitate full-fledged medical and health services to the public. The crisis is so deep that there are no funds even to purchase medicines and chemical reagents.
The number of visitors at the Out-Patient (OP) wing has dropped to around 800 from 1,600 per day. Many routine medical examinations including lipid profile, blood, urine and stools tests were stopped a long time ago due to lack of financial support from the government. Private agencies too have stopped supply of equipment required for these tests as their bills are not being paid promptly.
Even infrastructure-wise, the RIMS has been facing many problems. At its inception, the hospital gained reputation for its good public health services. With 500 beds, around 400 medical staff and services of 500 medicos, the OP wing of the hospital attracted nearly 1,600 patients per day. But, as time passed, higher officials of the hospital, as well as the government, have shown step-motherly attitude to the hospital. Gradually, it has lost its glory and now the OP rush has reduced to almost half and even patients who were getting treatment here are dissatisfied with the health services at the hospital.
The hospital had acquired one fully automatic blood analyser (`50 lakh) and one thyroid testing machine (`10 Lakh) a long time. These were very helpful in conducting various blood tests and thyroid tests. But, due to lack of funds to purchase necessary chemicals, these two costly machines are now rendered non-functional. Even the treadmill, echo-cardio machine, which were provided to serve senior citizens, were placed in store rooms as they are not being used ere not used due to lack of funds.
Except ultra sound scanning, MRI, CT Scan and gastroscopy, other modern medical scanning services are not yet available here. Besides these hurdles, some medical staff have became a headache for the administration due to their indiscipline. Though bio- metric attendance is there, most of the staff do not follow it. With the ‘Hospital Development Society Committee’ not being appointed as yet, no one is taking the responsibility of the hospital administration.
“We are very serious about setting things right at the prestigious RIMS Hospital as soon as possible. We will take all steps to help the hospital regain its past glory,’’ Pola Bhaskar, District Collector and HDS head said.
He was the chief guest of the hospital development review meeting held on Wednesday. He enquired about the infrastructure, administration, funding issues and discussed various development plans for the hospital.