At a government hospital in Godda, Jharkhand, tuberculosis testing equipment can be found in a toilet
At the main government hospital in Jharkhand's Godda district, equipment for tuberculosis testing have been set up in the worst possible "lab" - a toilet.
For many months, the Sadar hospital, the only one in the district known to have advanced medical facilities, has been operating its TB testing lab out of the toilet. It is an unused washroom, hospital employees explain, as if that makes it somehow better.
Many smaller hospitals in the district do not even have their own buildings and it is Sadar where most patients come to.
An NDTV crew visited the hospital on Wednesday, after a tip-off by the hospital staff, and found medical supplies scattered around the tiny washroom; even the toilet seat and wash basin are storage space.
Godda's civil surgeon CK Sahi, who is in charge of medical facilities in the entire district, claims the toilet is used for storage, not tests.
"The place was being cleaned and some staff put the equipment there. The district officer should have seen it. A new building is being constructed so everything was dumped there," Dr Sahi told NDTV.
He says he has now ordered the staff to shift the lab material out of the toilet.
Godda, one of Jharkhand's 24 districts, is the site of many proposed private power projects. The sight of the toilet lab, however, brings home the fact that it lacks even basic health infrastructure.
"(Sadar) is known as the best hospital here but it is the worst," said BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who represents the Godda constituency in Parliament.
"There is a shortage of doctors, blood and ambulances in the hospital. I think the civil surgeon and the Jharkhand government should be asked what they are doing," Mr Dubey said, criticising his own party-led government.
Jharkhand's Health Secretary K Vidyasagar said it would be "incorrect" to say the lab is being run from a toilet. "The old TB centre was being shifted and this was a makeshift arrangement for storing unused equipment," he claimed.