AGARTALA, June 25 (TIWN): Tripura Health Minister Badal Choudhury on Wednesday visited the Indira Gandhi Memorial (IGM) Hospital in Agartala city as a part of the plan to visit major hospitals of the state in the wake of the recent malaria epidemic that cost 47 lives till Tuesday. The Health Minister visited all wards in the old and new buildings of the IGM Hospital and met all medical officers serving the hospital.

 Interacting with the media later this evening, the minister said that there were reports of misappropriation of facilities and other anomalies running in the hospital administration. “The state government will take very stern action if any individual or any group is found guilty of such actions”, the minister warned.
In a terse warning, Choudhury today said that investigations would be started against all allegations of corruption and malpractices in the hospital.

“Heath sector is directly related to the lives of people. The government will not tolerate any wrongdoings”, he said. Asked about allegations of deliberate harassment to patients including filthy sanitation, poor quality of free diet, ill behavior of nurses and doctors, the minister said that he had visited all wards, major sections of the hospital including operation theaters, medical wards, paediatric wards etc. “All sanitation facilities are up to date now.

We shall keep periodic vigil to make sure the hospitals function as they are supposed to”, he added. The Health Minister today reiterated that the central malaria expert team from Delhi said that preliminary findings during their visits in distant villages of the state ruled out the proposition of ‘malaria epidemic’ situation in Tripura. “They have informed us that it was an outbreak which spread over a sizeable area. This can’t, however, be termed as epidemic”, he added.