TIMES VIEW:

HYDERABAD: Not just wheelchairs, but all basic facilities at Gandhi Hospital come for a price. The nexus of in-house staffers has ensured that patients walking into the staterun facility have no choice but to cough up a few extra bucks -over and above the cost of treatment -in the name of 'chai paani'.Investigation by TOI on Monday revealed that corruption at the 1,800-bed hospital is far more widespread than what meets the eye. To add to patient's woes are the extremely unhygienic conditions and poor services that they, and their families, are left to battle. “My brother was admitted in the hospital in January.During his treatment, we had to pay up to Rs 50 three times a day to the housekeeping staff to avail their services. Apart from this, we had to bribe the ward boys with another Rs 200 to get us an injection or medicines,“ said Hajra Begum, sister of Khaja Pasha , who succumbed to Haemophilia on March 18. The sister was visiting another ailing relative, admitted in the emergency ward, on Monday.Gandhi Hospital has close to 3,000 patients visiting the OP -from across the state -on a regular basis. Several among them have similar tales of harassment, at the hands of hospital staff, to share. Prerana, a dentist, for instance said how she had to bribe the ward boys, every time her grandfather shifted from one ward to the other.“And this was happening constantly. After settling in one ward, he was shifted again to ward no 6. Every time he was shifted, ward boys demanded `chai paani',“ said Prerana.While the ward boys -all of them outsourced -at the hospital draw a monthly salary of Rs 12,000, the salaries of housekeeping staff is about Rs 7,800 (including provident fund and state insurance). Insiders say these employees easily make an additional Rs 7,500 to 15,000 from `chai paani' demands.They shockingly charge even to change soiled bed sheets, said another patient, Mahalaxmi who had come from Tandur, Vikharabad. “I was amazed when a housekeeping staff told me that I would need to pay some money to get a fresh bed sheet,“ she said, ruing how the staffers are extremely rude.When TOI spoke to the incharge of housekeeping at the hospital, S Nagaraju, he said that the problem lies in the acute shortage of staff. “There are only 250 sanitation workers, 20 supervisors and 200 ward boys working in three shifts. The required manpower in each department is 400,“ said Nagaraju.He inexplicably argued how corruption had also mushroomed because of patients' attitude. “Several patients take the wheelchair and fail to return it. They avail it from the OP and then leave it at some other ward.Ward boys then have to bring it back. Therefore, they seek money so that there is a sense of accountability among patients,“ said Nagaraju.While government hospitals attract patients from across all economic strata of society, it particular serves the lesser privileged. It is extremely important that authorities put a fair system in place so that patients can avail hospital facilities without much trouble. Healthcare is a basic right of every citizen and they cannot be deprived of the same because of monetary constraints.