AGRA: Two days ago, 23-year-old Vimlesh who had been running high fever died in her native village, Mahuvan in Mathura, hours after she was administered medicines prescribed by a quack. Her husband, Puran Singh , said the nearest community centre in Farah is 3 km away and one rarely finds a doctor there. Going to the quack, who had been running an allopathic clinic in the village for many years, was not a matter of choice for them.

Vimlesh’s death comes close on the heels of the Unaao incident where local residents were infected with HIV by a quack, who used the same syringe on multiple patients without sterilizing it. The two incidents have once again exposed the menace of quacks in UP.

With most of UP hospitals, particularly in rural areas, suffering from acute shortage of doctors and specialists, and rampant absenteeism, quacks across the state are having a field day, playing with the lives of thousands of patients daily. There is also the fact that quacks dispense treatment cheap, in some cases for as little as Rs 10, forcing many of the state's poor to head to them.

According to officials of the health department, 40% posts of government doctors are lying vacant in the state. Only 11,034 doctors are working against the sanctioned strength of 18,382 posts.

Similarly, 60% posts of specialists, like gynaecologists and pediatricians, are lying vacant in government health institutes as only 3,000 of them are working against the sanctioned strength of 7,300.

There are 7,000 vacancies of government doctors in the state. “The unavailability of registered medical practitioners in rural areas forces people to take the services of quacks,” admit officials.

Agra district alone has around 2,000 quacks. According to Agra’s deputy CMO and nodal officer , Dr Ajay Kapoor , 1500-2000 quacks have been identified in Agra district. Similarly, 2,000 of them have been identified in Mathura district and nearly 500 in Aligarh. But government figures peg the numbers at far less.

Dr Padmakar Singh , director general (medical health), in response to the state government’s order to provide information on quacks, said 14 of 75 districts have identified 621 quacks in all. Notably, some of these districts — Allahabad, Fatehpur, Kausambhi, Ambedkar Nagar, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Orai, Chitrakoot, Mahoba, Hamirpur, Sitapur, Gautambuddh Nagar, Moradabad and Ghazipur – are among the most populous and backward ones in the state.

Singh said that he is going to issue a circular to all districts to conduct a special campaign to curb this menace by taking action against quacks. With negligible presence of healthcare in rural hinterland, however, this is easier said than done.