UP Health scare: Sweepers and non-experts performing medic duties seems to be the norm in the state

After a TV news channel’s expose, which showed class 4 employees of the Bulandshahr hospital performing medic and paramedic duties like stitching wounds and administering injections a hospital in Ballia showed a sweeper attending to patients in the emergency ward.

There the sweeper was found administering stitches to patients in the emergency ward and even the pharmacist was injecting patients. The doc was conspicuously absent. When asked, all the Chief Medical Superintendent would say was that sweepers are not allowed to give injections, and that strict action would be taken against those guilty.

“Sweepers are not allowed to treat patients. I condemn it if such practices are taking place in the Ballia Hospital,” he said. The sweeper Rajkumar, meanwhile, admitted that they administer stitches and injections to patients. And that they do it at the doctors’ behest.”I’m a sweeper at the hospital. When there are a lot of patients, I assist the doctor with stitches and injections,” he says. These incidents underlie the healthcare woes in Uttar Pradesh and such incidents could pretty well be the norm in the state.