One wonders if there is an ?administration? at Moka Eye Hospital. If it does, then supervision, control, monitoring, discipline and efficiency are lamentably missing. To obtain proof of this, the "administration" should sit "incognito" with an impartial eye with patients in the waiting hall. He/she will witness the topsy-turvy way in which names are called. The rudimentary principle of "each in turn" is not respected, much to the dismay and irritation of patients who see people coming after them called in, while they are left to sit for hours. Some names are called inside the corridor and not in the hall. So they do not hear their names. Some are not called at all, when they try to find out, they are roughly treated.

After the vision assessment exercise, patients are directed towards the examining doctor. The latter sometimes does not find the assessment on the patient?s card. He sends the patient back to the nurse who sends him again to the doctor, asking in an arrogant manner, to tell the doctor that he does not even know how to turn the card pages! The doctor discovers, after a frantic scrutiny, that the nurse had written on the wrong place on the card. He is perplexed by the attitude of a junior staff smacking of disrespect and bordering on insubordination towards a superior.

These are the daily scenes at our National Eye Hospital. Ironically enough, we see beautiful slogans on the walls advertising good welcome and impeccable service to the public. Is it not time that the administrators step out of their cosy office to see what happens under their administration ? Hollow slogans make no sense when patients? vulnerability are abused. The hospital should be no place of irritation, anger, and frustration due to lack of organization. Every responsible head of a unit is supposed to be a manager able to monitor and supervise an efficient service.

Hospital work relating to appointments and proper handling of cards is a routine work requiring no appreciable amount of brain work, let alone IQ! The hospital staff should not be under the illusion that the whole burden of the country, or of the hospital, rests on their lone shoulders. The hospital should be a place of hospitality, care and impartial treatment with no daily scenes of stress creating bad impressions on visitors.

It is more than high time that the authorities consider making use of IT and related logistics to modernise hospital services. It is only then that the oft-spoken concepts of ?world-class education?, ?management-pioneering? and ?hubs? will gain significance and relevance. The existing work system and hospital administration are strikingly archaic. A mockery of our so-called welfare state and idea of "putting the people first"!

The hospital is more than sufficiently staffed. It is a question of using human resources in a cost-effective way. Otherwise, we shall stay in the category of Third-World countries and take pride in the saying that ?in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king?.

<B>Afraju</B>