Coalition Against Corruption partners had met to conduct a monitoring visit on the 22^nd December. The CAC team visited Jayanagar and Ramanagara District Hospitals where it has set up help desks for patients who are facing corruption in accessing health services.

Jayanagar Hospital:

The Jayanagar Hospital helpdesk works in the following manner:

m      The help desk of this hospital is situated at the entrance of the hospital;

m      The help desk at Jayanagar has four coordinators and one manager;

m      The help desk volunteers wear yellow colour apron; and

m      The main work of the help desk involves taking written and oral complaints from the patients/users of the hospital and forward the same to the hospital superintendent. Further the follow up of various complaints is also part of the help desk’s work.

m      the help desk is also involved in solving other related problems of the patients e.g. in getting appointments with doctors, obtaining proper medicines, and helping illiterate patients.

The Help desk faced several problems in the initial stages, as the help desk was perceived by hospital staff as an interference in the work of doctors, nurses, compounders, ward boys and other staff of hospital. However, slowly the hospital staff came to acknowledge the help desk coordinators as part of hospital staff and the help desk volunteers started receiving greater cooperation and coordination from the hospital staff.

Ramanagaram District Hospital:

The monitoring team also visited Ramangaram District Hospital where CAC also operates a Help Desk. Here the duties of the Help Desk are similar to that of Jayanagar Hospital though the context will demand a different user pattern. For instance higher numbers of illiterate patients can be found in Ramanagaram Hospital, meaning more time will be spent on helping patients fill out forms for doctor appointments than in Jayanagar. Arguably the Help Desk is more needed in Ramanagara for this reason also.

The following are the key issues that the team took cognizance of during their visit to Ramanagara hospital:

1.                  The hospital waste is dumped in the open ditch behind the hospital and is separated manually without any protection.

2.                  The renovation work has been going on since past two years, but there is no improvement.

3.                  The ceiling (roof) of the hospital either has come out or is in depilated condition.

4.                  The Group-IV staff are not given any uniform.

5.                  Most of the toilets either do not have doors or the doors are broken. Further, there is no proper ventilation and lighting in the toilets. Some toilets appeared to be closed permanently.

6.                  There are not enough facilities for the patients to wait, like chairs, toilets, etc.

7.                  The hospital kitchen is closed.

8.                  Overall cleanliness and hygiene is lacking in the Ramanagara hospital

9.                  The specialist doctors have all arrived very late for the medical camp. They were supposed to be there by 9 AM, but came only between 12-12.30.

The help desk staff are happy with their work at the Ramanagara hospital and opined that the help desk need to be continued and expanded if possible, given the demand from patients.

Attendees:

Mr. Bhupendra from Karuna Trust

Mr. Guru and Mr. Aswath Narayana from Consumer Care Society,

Mr. P. Srikant and Ms. Prarthana Rao from PAC

Mr. Vijaya Kumar from AVAS