Sabbavaram deprived of Medical Facilities

Visakhapatnam: First aid is still a far cry for the people, who are residing at Sabbavaram, an educational hub. More than 3,000 families are staying at Sabbavaram, which is also the headquarters of another 34 villages.

The people in the mandal have been deprived of medical aid in case of any emergency. In 2010, a 30-bed government hospital was established and later, it was downgraded into a Primary Health Centre (PHC) in 2014.

And there are five permanent doctors and 30 staff at the hospital on record, surprisingly patients are not provided treatment due to shortage of staff, it is learnt.

In the past five years, the local bodies took up many development projects like laying of roads and an underground drainage system. The X-ray room and other rooms have been closed for the past five years as it was locked up for a long time.

The driver of the ambulance in which the ambulance was kept in the shed for years receives monthly salary regularly after managing regular attendance on the bio-metric system.

Speaking to The Hans India here, D Srinivasa Rao, president of Sabbavaram panchayat, said that the issue was taken up with political leaders and meetings were conducted in the hospital but in vain.

Junior doctors, who joined as house surgeons from Visakhapatnam, used to attend emergency cases and provide first aid for those who were injured in accidents on the highways.

After they left to another place, and the hospital was degraded to PHC, it seems doctors, too, become lethargic and are not available after 4 pm and arriving at the hospital only after 11 am.

Speaking on the issue, medical health officer Dr Kishore Kumar said that he had already urged the district officials to relocate the hospital staff on deputation to another hospital or upgrade the PHC into 30 beds hospital by releasing the funds to improve proper infrastructure in the hospital to serve the villagers.

The two doctors of the private hospital, who are running clinics in that area, started refusing to treat even emergency cases after a few bad experiences like villagers demanding compensation and defaming the reputation of the clinics when some of the patients died while undergoing treatment.

District medical health officer R Ramesh said that the Primary Health Centre was only meant for the MBBS students, who were pursuing their house surgency from 9 am to 4 pm every day and moving the staff from Sabbavaram PHC to Pendurthi 300-bed hospital was already discussed with the local MLA.

The next step would be implemented in the coming days as per the scheduled transfers.

In case of an emergency, the villagers, who are nearby the Sabbavaram area, can directly move to the Pendurthi Government Hospital as it is the nearest government hospital located between all the villagers.

If there was any delay in providing treatment or delay in providing emergency services like ambulance it could be brought to their notice he added.