Fill vacant posts of pharmacists in 10 days: CM to Chief Secy

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 18

To tackle the problem of long queues for medicines in the Delhi Government-run hospitals, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today ordered Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash to fill vacant posts of pharmacists within 10 days and open more pharmacy counters in the hospitals.

Kejriwal also directed Health Minister Satyendar Jain and the Chief Secretary to organise training for doctors for creating awareness about the government schemes, including the free surgeries in private hospitals.

The directions came after the Chief Minister during a surprise inspection at Guru Tegh Bahadur (GTB) Hospital today came across patients and attendants many of whom were standing in queues at pharmacy in the hospital for hours since morning while many had to come for the second day as they could not get it yesterday.

Kejriwal directed the Chief Secretary that the vacant posts be filled on an urgent basis so that the waiting time at the pharmacy counters is not more than 15 minutes.

It was found that there was a shortage of ultrasound machines in the hospital and the Chief Minister directed the Health Minister to look into this issue.

“Made a surprise visit of GTB hospital wid Health Min, CS n Health Secy. Long queues at pharmacy. Need to increase no. of counters n pharmacists. Shortage of ultrasound machines. Personally spoke to many patients. People satisfied wid availability of medicines (sic),” Kejriwal tweeted.

He said people were largely found to be satisfied with the availability of medicines and services in the government hospitals even as another pressing issue that patients brought to his notice was doctors giving long dates for surgeries. Some patients were even being given dates for operations after three months.

“Awareness needs to be generated about the government scheme of free surgeries at private hospitals in the city,” said Kejriwal while noting that there was also a huge information gap in the government hospitals.

Under the scheme, patients irrespective of income groups and given date of surgery after 30 days of diagnosis at one of the 24 specified government hospitals in the city will be able to avail the scheme. The scheme covers 52 surgeries.

“In the OPD many patients did not know where to go, which doctor to refer to for treatment, etc. For plugging this information gap there is a need to appoint volunteers to guide the patients who visit the hospital,” stressed the Chief Minister, who visited the pharmacy, emergency ward, general ward, paediatrics ward and ultrasound department of the GTB hospital.