GS4 (Case Study)
Rural hospitals are a critical, yet vulnerable, part of our national healthcare delivery system. They provide emergency department services, inpatient care, outpatient care, long-term care, and care coordination services. Unique circumstances, characteristics, and challenges of rural hospitals have resulted in different approaches to healthcare than those used in an urban environment.
You are posted as the Health Officer of a district level Government Hospital in Surgana, a tribal taluka located 90 km from Nashik in Maharashtra. It delivers to the need of destitute patients from nearby rural areas along with the native people from the district city. The hospital has very good infrastructure and satisfactory apparatus to accommodate all its needs. It also receives adequate resources to meet the periodic cost. Still there have been frequent complaints mainly from the patients which include the following:
(i) Careless attitude of the Medical consultants resulting in times into fatalities.
(ii) Supervisors often demanding bribes from the patients for the services rendered.
(iii) Poor maintenance and un-sanitary conditions in the hospital building.
(iv) Draining-off of a substantial stock of drugs by the staff and selling it out.
(v) Existence of a notorious employee union which puts unjustified pressure and resents any transformative step by the management.
(vi) Nexus between the senior surgeons of the hospital and the owners of local private clinics and testing laboratories as a result of which the patients are strongly deceived and dissuaded from availing the hospital facilities and rather bound to purchase costly medicines from market and get medical tests and even operations done from private clinics.
Suggest effective ways to confront each of the above mentioned problem.
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