Problems driving mental care hospital round the bend

The 300-bed Government Hospital for Mental Care (GHMC) in the city is in a dismal state. Not only is the hospital suffering from an acute shortage of drugs and manpower, it is also plagued by a host of administrative problems as well as political interference. This even as the retirement of its superintendent M Vijaya Gopal on Tuesday, has thrown the hospital into further uncertainty. Gopal was the only doctor in the hospital's 130-year history to serve as superintendent twice from 1993-99 and 2011-13. Those familiar with the working of the hospital said that most of the shelves in the hospital's pharmacy lie empty and patients have to pay from their pockets to purchase drugs, most of which have to be taken life long, from the market. The only drug available is THP (trihexyphenidyl), which is used to minimise the side effects of psychiatric medicines, admitted GHMC pharmacist Mohini. "Doctors have prescribed three medicines that my brother has to take daily, but none of these is available in the hospital. We will have to buy these medicines, which cost around Rs 1,500 for a month's supply, from pharmacies outside," lamented A Ram Babu, sibling of a Vizianagaram patient undergoing treatment at the hospital. "There has been an acute shortage of psychiatric drugs for the last one year as the supply from the AP Medical Services Infrastructure Development Corporation (APMSIDC) is neither adequate nor does it come on time. The administrative powers of the superintendent too are caught in red tapism, resulting in unwarranted delays in procuring anything for the hospitals," admitted former GHMC superintendent Vijaya Gopal. He also alleged that the outsourcing of work to contractors with strong political links has led to problems as the salaries of the workers are often pocketed by the contractors. As if this was not enough, the hospital is reeling under an acute manpower shortage. The hospital, which gets around 70,000 out-patients each year and has around 6,000 new cases being registered every year, has no resident medical officers to ensure smooth running of each department or specially trained psychiatric nurses to take care of the patients. The former superintendent also revealed that sometimes they are forced to keep patients for over six months to a year in the hospital though they are fit to go home, due to political pressure. "These patients are referred to us by some MPs and MLAs. We are forced to oblige though it is against mental health norms to keep patients in hospital unnecessarily as we are told that the relatives are either too poor or not interested in taking them back," he said. Even the appointment of the new in-charge superintendent was fraught with politicking. While there were four contenders for the top job, the health directorate eventually placed psychiatrist Prof N N Raju, who is also the vice-principal of Andhra Medical College, as in-charge superintendent till a permanent superintendent takes over. The two frontrunners for the post, based on seniority, were Prof N N Raju and Prof S Radha Rani but others keen on the job started indulging in mud-slinging against other contenders. According to hospital sources, one of those vying for the post was allegedly involved in misappropriation of funds allotted by Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) for research, while there were allegations of another doctor violating clinical trial guidelines when the trials were conducted on patients at the hospital between 2006 and 2011. Ultimately, clinical trials were stopped in the hospital from 2011.