ROURKELA: After the task of supervising drain cleaning work a couple of years ago, three homoeopathic Medical Officers (MOs) of Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) have now been tasked to verify ration card beneficiaries with door to door visit.
It is just one of the glaring instances of how the State Government apathy is systematically killing the low-cost and effective homoeopathic mode of treatment. Sources said four State Government-run homoeopathic dispensaries and Utkalmani Homoeopathy Medical College and Hospital (UHMCH) here are perennially facing resource crunch.
A reality check on the RMC’s ramshackle homoeo dispensary at Railway Colony speaks volumes about the administration’s neglect.
The dispensary runs from a space provided at the corner of a club room which additionally serves as storage room of the club.
The Medical Officer attends to the patients by using broken chairs of the club and an old wooden table. Although the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department spends around ` two lakh per month towards salaries of three MOs and eight support staff of the three existing dispensaries, from 2007 onwards, the RMC has stopped supplying medicines to its dispensaries.
A homoeopathic Medical Officer said supply of medicines worth Rs1,500- 2,000 would be sufficient for each dispensary. Now RMC dispensaries are not even capable of providing first-aid or stitching services in absence of cotton roll, needle and suture or bandage.
Minor medical equipment like stethoscope, BP measuring instrument, thermometer, tongue-depressor or weighing machine are not supplied. In fact, between 2009 and 2014, five homoeo dispensaries of RMC were closed, while last year, RMC had written to the Health department to take over the existing dispensaries at Railway Colony, Chhend Colony and Koelnagar.
The indoor patient department (IPD) of the Government-run UHMCH was stopped in 1994 due to lack of required MOs and paramedical staff. However, after protest by homoeopathy medical students four months ago, the Directorate of AYUSH is under pressure to run the IPD.
UHMCH principal Dr GR Giri said the IPD will be functional from next month.Two more MOs havebeen postedand two staffnurses are likely to joinshortly. The new laboratoriesof pharmacy, pathologyand physiologywould work soon, he added. Former working president of Odisha Homoeopathy Physicians’ Association Dr BN Nayak lamented the State Government’s apathy towards homoeopathy science.
The low cost homoeopathic treatment has the potential to provide an alternative to costly allopathic treatment, he said.