Drug crunch hits TSRTC hospital

​Hyderabad: The RTC employees including the retired ones are made to suffer as the medicines in the TSRTC hospital in Tarnaka have exhausted and the patients are made to purchase them outside. According to the patients, there are no medicines in the Tarnaka Hospital (for RTC employees) for the last three months. The reason attributed was that the agency which was to supply the medicines had dues to the tune of Rs 4 crore.

According to Union leaders, it is the only hospital for the staff working in the TSRTC and also the retired employees. The leaders said that the corporation deducts Rs 20,000 from the retirement benefit of the retired employees for providing the medical cover. Of late, the corporation has changed the system in the hospital and Med Plus is supplying medicines. 

However, the agency has stopped the supply and it had caused a shortage of medicines for the last three months. The doctors in the hospital are suggesting the employees to purchase medicine from outside, said a union leader. According to the officials on an average 2,000 employees use the hospital services for their ailments every day. The medicines for BP, Sugar and other are provided free but the hospital gave the contract to Med Plus in 2016. 

The hospital now owes dues to the tune Rs 4 crore, said official sources.  The Telangana Jatiya Mazdoor Union (TJMU) general secretary K Hanumanthu Mudiraj alleged that the patients are put to hardships because of the lack of medicines. He said that that because of shortage of medicine only one out of six counters are operating, leading to huge queues. Not only the medicines but also there are shortage of doctors in the hospital but the management is doing nothing, alleged Hanumanthu. 

The TJMU has called for Chalo Tarnaka Hospital against the neglect of management, he said. When asked, the Executive Director M Ravinder accepted that there was shortage of medicines in the hospital.This was because of the delay in payment to the agency which was supplying the medicines, he said. 

He said that the stores department of the management has made part of the payment and medicine supply was restored in the hospital on Wednesday. He said that it would take a week to get normalcy in the supply of medicines.