Kendrapara (Orissa):
Orissa's health department has begun a probe after a man was wrongly diagnosed with HIV/AIDS by a self-styled physician in a village, officials said on Tuesday.
Balaram Patra, 33, from the far-flung seaside Talchua village, who was later tested negative in the government-run diagnostic centre, has drawn the attention of police and health authorities to the issue.
Health authorities have ordered a departmental probe into the incident, while an FIR has been lodged against the diagnostic centre and the self-styled doctor, officials said.
The unsavoury episode lends credence to the oft-repeated charge that quacks are running parallel health service network in this coastal district.
"My life had taken a turn towards the worse after an erroneous medical report found me carrying HIV/AIDS virus. The government-run public health centre (PHC) at Talchua has become defunct and no doctor is turning up here," Patra, a local businessman, said.
"When I was suffering from fever and pain in the joints last month, I sought medical advice from a self-styled doctor who has opened a clinic in the village. He tested blood samples and to my horror, I was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS," he said.
To crosscheck the blood-test results, Patra got himself tested at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre (ICTC) at Pattamundai run by state AIDS Control Society.
"It's an unfortunate incident. The diagnostic test report compiled by ICTC conclusively stated that the complainant was never infected with HIV virus," said Biraj Kumar Sahu, the chief district medical officer.
The guilty practitioner's diagnostic centre would be shut down under the provisions of the Clinical Establishment Act, Sahu said, adding that action could be taken against the self-styled doctor under the provisions of the Medical Council of India Act, 1956, and also under the Indian Penal Code.
The medical officer admitted that self-styled doctors have their networks spread far and wide across the district.
"We are helpless. Of the 124 sanctioned posts of doctors, as many as 77 posts are vacant. As a result, large areas have remained out of bounds of the government health service network. This has prompted the illegal medical practitioners to spread their wings," the CDMO observed.
At Talchua, the government PHC has turned dysfunctional as no doctor agrees to join duty in the remote pocket.