Title - Railway pensioners want better medical facilities

Ludhiana: Members of the Northern Railway Pensioners Welfare Association said today although the erstwhile railway health unit was upgraded to a sub-divisional hospital (SDH), special medical care was not available to employees, pensioners and their families.A memorandum was submitted to Dr Chetna Kapoor, medical superintendent of the SDH, Sher Singh, chairman, SM Sharma, president, and BR Dhawan, general secretary of the association. The memorandum states that no postgraduate doctor in surgery, orthopaedics, pathology and dentistry were permanently posted at the railway hospital."Some doctors coming here from the divisional hospital at Ferozepur do not serve the purpose. Emergency medical services are denied to the beneficiaries. The diagnostic contract (for laboratory tests), which had expired on March, has not been renewed. With the SDH being short of specialists, the pensioners and serving employees are made to go to Ferozepur or New Delhi for treatment," the memorandum stated.Functionaries of the association further complained that demand of at least once-a-week visits by a cardiologist for conducting regular check up of the elderly pensioners was also caught in the bureaucratic red-tapism.The pensioners were disappointed at the failure of the railway authorities to recognise a reputed private hospital where the pensioners and serving employees could avail specialised medical care, especially in medical emergencies on cash-less basis. “This facility is available to the employees and pensioners of the Northern Railway headquarters. They why the beneficiaries in Ludhiana are facing discrimination,” they complained.

They alleged that the medical bills submitted by the employees and pensioners towards treatment of life-threatening diseases were held back for months together putting the claimants in dire financial crisis.

The association called for posting of specialists at the SDH without any further delay, recognition of a reputed private hospital in the city for railway employees and pensioners and immediate clearance of all pending medical bills.

"If the railway authorities failed to respond to our demands and proper medical facilities are not made available to the beneficiaries, we shall launch an agitation with the support of serving employees," the pensioners said.

Copies of the memorandum were also sent to chief medical superintendent, Northern Railway, Ferozepur, and chief medical director in New Delhi, executive director of health, Railway Board and the Union Railway Minister.