Healthcare woes at MKCG: Patients forced to wait for long hours for pathology tests

Berhampur: Waiting for hours to get their pathological reports at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital in the city has now exacerbated the suffering of patients and their attendants.

According to sources, right from the daybreak, people have been seen rushing to the diagnostic centres for blood and other tests to avoid waiting for long hours leading to ruckus-like situation in the hospital on a daily basis. Not only adults, but kids, women and even elderly are also forced to bear the brunt of this mismanagement.

“Waiting for four hours without having any food is not good for patients but what can we do. The authorities should resolve the problem,” a patient said.

Relative of another patient rued that even though the doctors had asked him to get the blood reports soon, he could not get the same due to long queues and lengthy process.

On the other hand, MKCG hospital Dean Radhamadhav Tripathy said, “After introduction of free Nidan scheme, the number of patients has increased two-fold in last year, so we have requested the government to set up more units of pathology, microbiology, biochemistry, and radio diagnosis. We hope that the problems will be solved within a month.”

The Odisha government had launched four important schemes for providing better healthcare services to people of Odisha including diagnostic services free of cost to all patients in public health facilities in the state from January 1, 2018.