Poor needing dialysis shooed away to admit DC’s father

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ropar, April 27

The Ropar Civil Hospital authorities played a generous host for a “VIP” patient requiring dialysis and returned poor patients suffering from renal failure, who finally had to go to a private dialysis centre, spending thousands at Chandigarh.

The “VIP” patient Narender Kashyap, father of Deputy Commissioner Tanu Kashyap, was allowed dialysis thrice a week.

Kashyap was the only patient to get this facility thrice a week last year. He was not even asked to deposit money for the service. According to the hospital authorities, 437 patients got dialysis done at the Ropar hospital against Rs 750. The patient also has to pay Rs 60 as file charges every time.

No money was deposited against 11 dialysis procedures done on Kashyap from September 11, 2014, to October 6, 2014, at the government hospital even as he had no entitlement to such facility under the state government rules. The charges against these 11 visits of Kashayap were deposited on October 11 when a doctor in the hospital protested against the apathetic attitude of the senior authorities during a meeting in the hospital, sources said. Kashyap had got dialysis done 66 times till February 23.

Suman Rani (61), a widow having no source of income, said she was suffering from renal failure for the past two years and required dialysis thrice a week. Suman Rani is dependent on her daughter Geeta. She used to get this facility twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday. Suman said the doctors at the hospital told her to go to some other dialysis centre for the third dialysis as the number of such patients was very large at Ropar.

In September, doctors told her that they could not provide her dialysis facility except on Saturday, as DC’s father had to go under dialysis thrice a week, she said.

Another patient Rani (37), wife of a daily-wage labourer, said she used to get dialysis on Monday and Thursday, till September last year. “In September, the staff at dialysis centre asked me to visit on Thursday only, informing that the DC’s father was to be accommodated for dialysis,” Rani said.

Similar was the case of Rajwant Kaur (21) who had to go under dialysis twice a week. Her father Jagdish Singh said they had to go to private dialysis centre as the hospital authorities cut down their visit to once a week.

Sources in the hospital said then SMO Rakesh Singla and Medical Officer Amarinder Singh Gill who conducted dialysis had protested against curtailing the service to the poor. The office of the Civil Surgeon, however, used its influence and both medicos bowed to the pressure by seniors.

While Senior Medical Officer Dr Mohinder Singh said he joined the hospital three months ago in January and wasn’t in the know of the case, Dr Gill refused to comment on the issue.

Civil Surgeon, Surinder Gangar, however, denied that poor patients were returned by the hospital authorities. The frequency of dialysis for the patients was decided by the doctors concerned and nothing wrong was noticed in the case, she claimed.

Deputy Commissioner Tanu Kashyap said the deposit of the charges against dialysis were delayed as she was busy due to serious condition of her father. On the deletion of name of patients from the list to accommodate her father, she said she did not know about it. Had she been aware of any such thing, she would have taken corrective measures, she said.