**Cuttack: ** An aggrieved father of a little girl patient was on Monday morning not only allegedly misbehaved by a team of doctors, but was also detained in the Cuttack SCB Medical College and Hospital police out post for making Facebook live highlighting the lacunae and lackadaisical attitude of the Odisha Government’s premier healthcare centre.
The incident took place before the Paediatric OPD & Emergency Complex on the sprawling SCB Medical campus.
Revealing his ordeal to media, the upset father, identified as one Prof Ramakanta Bhoi of Tirtol in Jagatsinghpur district, narrated, “I came here with my little daughter for a check-up in the morning. I waited for over one and half hours in the Paediatric Emergency here. But found not a single doctor or any nurse or even any attendant. Eventually, I decided to make it public by means of Facebook live. Such a sorry state of affair of Odisha’s biggest medical college and hospital should be made public.”
“After the 40-minute-long Facebook live shown to public, the doctors came. They at once started charging me why I recorded and highlighted. I replied that the genuine things were made public and nothing objectionable or illegal. They not only talked with me in an indecent manner, but also reminded me of the antecedent in which they have already assaulted attendants here recently. They even threatened me to attack me in the same manner. They intimated the police and I have been detained here hours together,” he added.
The upset father of the little girl patient also grumbled, “I’ve come from 80 km distant Tirtol, let alone the untold sufferings of other patients and attendants coming over here from far flung areas. My daughter is suffering from high fever. I have also, through this Facebook live, tried to draw the attention of both the Health Minister and Chief Minister of our State about the precarious healthcare system in SCB,”
In his strong reactions, noted environmentalist and social activist Biswajit Mohanty remarked, “Our Odisha CM has stressed upon governance and service delivery through ‘3Ts’. One of the ‘Ts’ is ‘Transparency’. Then what was the gentleman doing? He was promoting ‘Transparency’. How can they catch him? He is not doing for a commercial purpose. He is recording for evidence purpose to show the authorities that there were actually no doctors when he rushed with his daughter there. There is a gross violation of human right of the gentleman because he has every right to record it as a grievance before the authority. The hospital is of the public and run by public money. Under which section the police have detained him and why?”
“There is a big scam in SCB as the doctors are working in private nursing homes and making a lot of money. They don’t attend the hospital duty. During working hours they are not present. And the Government has absolutely no control over them. As such things are being exposed by the gentleman, everybody there is trying to stop him,” Mohanty averred.
