Nabarangpur: It has been 15 days now that families of the deceased have remained deprived of the services of the ‘Mahaprayan’ hearse service in Nabarangpur district headquarters hospital (DHH) as its tyres are worn out.
The latest to suffer was the family of Baidee Harijan of Tara village here.
Baidee, a brain tumor patient, died Saturday night while undergoing treatment at the DHH. The family, however, could not avail the hearse’s service.
The hospital authority arranged for a private vehicle, when they were about to take the body in a hired vehicle to their village.
The ‘Mahaprayan’ hearse is unavailable for service as its tyres are worn out. The hospital authority is apparently indifferent to the absence of such an important service despite the hearse driver having reported the problem much earlier.
When contacted, ADM (Medical) Sanjit Patnaik admitted that the service has been stopped for the past 15 days. The tyres need to be replaced and the Collector was intimated accordingly. The tyres were not replaced even after these had run over 80,000km although the limit is 70,000 km. Now it is out of service, he added.
Collector Ajit Kumar Mishra said the hospital had been provided Rs 3 lakh from Red Cross fund to make the ‘Mahaprayan’ service available for the needy ones. The hospital authority should have used that money, he added.
Worse, the hearse provided by MP Balabhadra Majhi from his MPLAD fund is not helping patients in any way.
It can be seen only at festivals and other occasions for emergency service, defeating the purpose for which the MP had donated the vehicle.
PNN