Date:26/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/26/stories/2008042652880300.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Collector warns GGH authorities of action

Staff Reporter

Orders refund of over Rs. 1 lakh from hospital funds to patients
Corruption in any form will not be tolerated, he says

Kakinada: District Collector Gopalakrishna Dwivedi ordered refund of Rs. 1,03,399 from the funds of Government General Hospital (GGH), Kakinada, to patients who purchased medicines from outside on Thursday. He issued notices to GGH Superintendent M. Surya Kumari and 10 other doctors on the basis of an inquiry conducted by RDO K. Nageswara Rao, seeking reasons as to why disciplinary action should not be taken against them for their failure to ensure supply of medicines in-house. Besides, Veerabhadra Rao, a male nurse orderly of the surgery ward, was placed under suspension on the charge of taking bribe. The doctors on whom the Collector served show-cause notices were: Y. Venkateswara Rao, S. Raj Kumar, K.S.R. Swami, P.V.V. Satyanarayana, Bharata Lakshmi, Vikram Kumar, S.V. Ramana, Raghavendra Rao, Ravi Sankar and G. Malleswara Rao.

Mr. Dwivedi ordered the GGH authorities to set things right at the earliest and warned that he would take stringent action if they failed to do so, and that the value of medicines which the patients might be forced to buy from outside would be recovered from the salaries of the doctors and other staff concerned. Similarly, corruption in any form would not be tolerated.

The Collector told reporters that he was intent on improving the services rendered in the GGH in a week though it might take a little longer, and he expected the doctors and the administrative staff to be sincere in discharging their duties and not expect anything from patients who were supposed to be served free of cost. Boards displaying the phone numbers of the Collector and doctors would be put at each ward to enable the patients to lodge complaints in case anybody demanded money or they were not properly treated.

Surprise visit

The GGH doctors and administrative staff were surprised when the Collector made a sudden inspection and they had no satisfactory explanation as to why there were several complaints on their functioning and what corrective measures they had taken to improve the situation.