Rautahat, September 5:

The Rautahat District Ayurved Hospital has been without a chief for nearly a year.

Patients said they had been deprived of medical service as the hospital has been without a chief for long.

A peon has been attending to the patients in the absence of hospital chief Dr Santosh Thakur, who has been absent for a year. Locals claimed that Dr Thakur had been living in district headquarters Gaur after agitation began in Tarai nearly a year ago.

“I am yet to see Dr Thakur, though I have visited the hospital for at least 12 times,” a patient Tirtha Choudhary said, adding that people in the district were being deprived of effective treatment in the absence of Dr Thakur.

Chaudhary added that Dr Thakur had been drawing salary without doing any work. However, a source at the hospital claimed that Dr Thakur had gone out of the district for training. More than 25 patients visit the hospital daily.