Sweeper gives patient stitches, ward boy handles injections

Bulandshahr: In a hospital in one of Uttar Pradesh's most backward areas, a man in a green shirt gives a young child stitches on his leg. The "doctor" is a sweeper at this government hospital.

A ward boy - meant to perform largely janitorial functions - gives another patient a tetanus shot. A trained nurse should be doing this.

All in a day's work at the Babu Banarsi Das District hospital in Bulandshahr, eight-hour drive from Lucknow, the state capital.

The hospital has 23 doctors on its staff. The Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS) of the hospital, Dr Shishil Kumar observes this, does not intervene.

When asked about this, the Chief Medical Officer SHS Danu said, "Sometimes there is a situation when there is nobody to attend to patients, so they sometimes help with the distribution of medicines."

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Ahmed Hasan, the health minister of Uttar Pradesh, said that he has been informed by the district health officials that the men are Operation Theatre attendants. "We will still have this probed to rule out whether those being shown in the news are wardboys or sweepers," he said.