Staff outnumber patients in Leprosy hospital

MARGAO, SEPT 6
This equation is indeed mind boggling at a time when the Directorate of Health Services face manpower constraints at almost all hospitals and health centers across the State.
Believe it or not, the crumbling Leprosy hospital – tucked away to a remote area in Macazana village – has 19 medical staff to look after a mere seven patients – including four females and three males.
Incidentally, it’s now two years and half since the leprosy hospital had mooted to the Directorate of Health Services to shift the patients to the health centre and make optimum use of the staff members in other hospitals and health centers. On paper, the Leprosy hospital has around 30 employees, but 11 of them have now been posted at the Curtorim centre and other hospitals.
Inquires revealed that all the seven patients housed in the hospital are fully cured of the disease and doctors say there’s no harm in shifting them to the primary centre so that the staff is utilized in other hospitals. “All the patients are fully cured. But, they do not want to go home because of the social stigma attached to the disease”, remarked a health official.
Besides manpower, the dilapidated state of affairs has brought to the fore the absence of  government’s attention for the hospital. One finds the old buildings housed inside the sprawling two lakh square meters of land crumbling with each passing year. Right now, only the male and female wards of the hospital are being maintained with basic facilities, while the old buildings, including staff quarters are crumbling.
Incidentally, the Curtorim Panchayat had requested the Health Services to allot land admeasuring 3000 sq mts in the hospital premises for treatment of waste, but in vain.
says former Curtorim ZP member, J Santano Rodrigues; “The Directorate of Health services had turned down the proposal for allotment of land on the plea the government is planning a project at the site. The waste treatment site would have solved the garbage woes of Curtorim, Macazana and Guirdolim villages”.