Enjoying their heydays over  decades in the absence of pledged health services in the erstwhile cutoff region, now called Swabhiman Anchal, the quacks there are now out of circulation, thanks to the noticeable presence of physicians and paramedical staffers at different locations.

In its mission to do away with the unwanted quack practice, the district administration of Malkangiri has revamped the rural healthcare and started bringing services to the doorsteps of villagers with the participation of Ayush doctors, pharmacists, ANMs, attendants and other para-medical staff.

The service providers are reaching out to the Maoist hotbed of Jodamba and Janbai and are attending the patients at their doorsteps thereby leaving no space for these phony doctors.

The PHCs operating under the Arogya Plus Project in PPP mode have further helped in giving a facelift to the door step health service.

As such the healthcare scenario is fast improving. The dismal situation of dumping of huge medicines at one place and treating patients with health problems in the weekly fairs on various locations is now a thing of the past with the intervention of the district administration, said a villager of Jodamba, Raghu Hantal.

Treatment received from the quacks in weekly fairs and villages was also costly compared to that from the qualified doctors now. Further, due to the complications caused by antiquated and wrong treatment, the patients had to pay a heavy price.

“But, now we are safe at the hands of the qualified doctors who are moving from one village to the other and rendering free health service at our door steps,” said a resident of Janbai Udhav Hantal while expressing his happiness over the revamping of the healthcare sector there.

Restructuring of the healthcare service was indispensable to overcome the quack menace in the Swabhiman Anchal thereby ensuring that their lives not put at risk in the hands of the confidence tricksters, said district Collector Manish Agarwal.