Bihar Congress demands white paper on health

The Bihar Congress today demanded the Nitish Kumar government to come out with a white paper on it budgetary allocation for health, alleging that the department was witnessing "an organized loot of public money".

Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee working president Kaukab Qadri issued a statement to this effect this evening after visiting the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) here, the largest government hospital in the state.

"We had visited the Nalanda Medical College Hospital recently which was in news because of rainwater entering its premises and fish found swimming in the ICU. After we saw the pathetic conditions there, we decided to have a look at the much bigger and, supposedly, prestigious PMCH. We were shocked," Qadri said.

"The squalour inside PMCH makes one feel that it is an abattoir. The government claims that 240 types of medicine were being supplied to the hospital but we checked and found that only 28 drugs were available," he said.

"The state government claims to have an annual health budget of more than Rs 7,000 crore. We would like it to come out with a white paper on the same as the situation on the ground suggests that there is an organized loot of public money going on in the department," Qadri added.