Weird self help service in premier govt hospital in Odisha capital; Pathology reports hung out

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 9:

Capital Hospital, the premier government hospital in the Odisha’s capital, has been running a bizarre self help service for patients for years, making them find their own pathology report from a bunch of reports hanging around the walls of the test center.

The lab, which works 24 hours, doesn’t have the time to check the identity of the person and hand him/her over the report in this hospital, which is the only hope for thousands of patients in and around the city.

This not only is a privacy concern but also causes huge concern when miscreants take down the report that doesn’t belong to them. At times, uneducated patients or attendants of patients take the wrong report with them leading to mistaken diagnosis of their health condition and causing inconvenience to the patient to whom the report belongs.

To make matters worse, in case of a confusion or lost or stolen report, the patient needs to get the test done again and wait for many hours (at times a day) for the report and the same self help process goes again!

Patients do protest when inconvenienced. However, mismanagement is the set norm in this hospital. The authorities have done nothing to get rid of it in years.

Speaking to OST, the Director of the Hospital Biswa Bhusan Patnaik sounded oblivious of the fact, but expressed his dissatisfaction with the practice saying; “It is absolutely not right to hang reports of patients around like this. We will take action to set aside this hassle as soon as possible.”