JAJPUR: At Dr Krushna Chandra Ray’s house in Salapada village, a large number of poor patients line up every morning and evening to seek treatment without having to worry about paying his consultation charges.
The 65-year-old doctor provides free treatment to people from poor socio-economic classes for six hours in a day - 6 am to 9 am and 6 pm to 9 pm. And this has been his daily routine for the last four years, the Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding.
A medicine specialist, Dr Ray is currently the medical officer of Khankira primary health centre (PHC) in Gondia block of Dhenkanal which is six km away from bordering Salapada under Barachana block of Jajpur district. While he attends the PHC from 10 am to 2 pm, Dr Ray devotes 3 hours in the morning and evening to poor patients who cannot afford treatment. He treats them for general ailments and some other diseases like diabetes. And in cases where patients cannot afford to buy medicines, he provides them with free physician samples. On an average, the physician gets 30 patients every day who come to him for free consultation.
Starting his career at Laxmipur UPHC in Koraput in 1984, he served in Western Odisha for four years and was transferred to Barachana block in 1988. After working in different health centres in the block for 22 years, Dr Ray was transferred to Puri and then to Khankira PHC in 2018. A native of Cuttack, he decided to settle at Salapada to serve the poor.
“All throughout my career, I have been posted in different rural areas. But after being posted at Khankira and residing in Salapada, I realised that this is one of the remotest places in the State where economically backward sections struggle for two meals in a day, forget medical expenses”, he said. This is when he decided to devote time beyond his office hours to provide free consultation to them.
People of 47 villages under nine gram panchayats of both Jajpur and Dhenkanal depend on Dr Ray as the local health facilities have no doctors. Also, they cannot afford to travel to facilities that are far away from their villages. The Salapada PHC has been without a doctor for the last over six months. Both Barachana community health centre (CHC) under Barachana block in Jajpur and Srirampur primary health centre (PHC) in Gondia block of Dhenkanal are more than 40 km away.