GRH patients complain of shortage of medicines

MADURAI: The Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH), which receives over 2,000 inpatients and 10,000 outpatients daily, is experiencing a severe shortage of vital medicines, forcing patients to be given less than required doses.
This was revealed when a team of members from the CPM, including district secretary R Vijayarajan, former Madurai South MLA R Annadurai, district executive committee member J Narasimman, among others visited the hospital on Saturday to listen to the grievances of the patients there.The patients told the team that they were not receiving their full quota of medicines.
Annadurai said it was very disturbing to note that medicines given to cardiac patients, are in short supply. Other regular medicines for thyroid and cholesterol-related problems were also lacking in stocks. He said the government allocates Rs 6 crore annually for medicines alone, but it is not fully utilised. Also, funds from the chief minister's health insurance scheme should be used to purchase vital medicines, instead of spending them on infrastructure development and the same had been stressed to the dean of the hospital, Dr M R Vairamuthuraju.
Another major issue the team noticed was the extremely unclean toilets, which did not have proper doors. The CPM members said the authorities failed to stem this issue, which could be a cause for the spreading of diseases.
Annadurai said the hospital was also facing acute water shortage. The main building and the extension building together required 10 lakh litres daily, but now they are receiving about only five lakh litres, through borewells and also from the Madurai Coporation tankers.
The cardiac ward was also not functioning to its full capacity due to snags in its equipment, stents and also lack of medicine supplies. "The waiting list for cardiac surgeries is also quite long," he said.
Earlier on Friday, the CPM members met the district collector K Veera Raghava Rao and urged him to take action against the issues plaguing the hospital. They also requested him to visit the hospital on a regular basis similar to what his predecessors did.