Source: Hueiyen News Service / Daniel Kamei
Tamenglong, December 26 2010:
Due to negligence of the state government, the Oinamlong Primary Health Centre, PHC is being run without a single doctor, and nurses have been prescribing medicines to patients for the past three years.
Nurses serving at the PHC are also said to be working on a contract basis.
When patients with serious illnesses come for treatment the nurses have no other means except to refer them to the nearest hospital that is in Jiribam 50-60 kms away, thus making medical treatment very expensive.
Many patients including women and children are said to have died on the way to Jiribam.
Hueiyen Lanpao has learnt that the PHC's nurses are not stationed regularly.
Hueiyen Lanpao's correspondent, when visiting the Oinamlong PHC, found no doctor nor any nurses but only an attendant who narrated the shortcomings of the PHC in the absence of doctors or regular nurses in the last three years.
The attendant Thiuniamliu alias Niam confirmed that there was no doctor in PHC for three years and that only nurses on contract havebeen running the PHC.
Answering a query the attendant said that as many as 27 delivery cases were carried out during 2009-2010 all in the absence of any doctor.
Our correspondent when talking to a group of women was informed that the Oinamlong PHC has been neglected by the district administration as well as by the state government.
One of the ladies, Buimanliu expressed regrets that women from surrounding areas who came for treatment at the PHC had to go back in frustration and that she personally knows of least seven persons who lost their lives on their way to the CHC Jiribam.
The women also said that there are five Anganwadi centres in Oinamlong village, however, not one of them is functioning.
The Anganwadi workers and helpers are to distribute milk powder, medicines, maggi and other materials door to door on receipt of the items from the office.
They also pointed out that the government school is in a pathetic condition with insufficient furniture and lack of teaching staff.
The people in the village who are poor cultivators have appealed through our correspondent to the concerned authority to run a proper school in the village.