Civil Hospital deflates claims on healthcare

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 25

Having earned the sobriquet ‘Badal’s political capital’ a decade ago, Bathinda witnessed the political grooming of many new faces in the recent past, but the health services in this ‘political citadel of Akalis’ have failed to make the matching progress.

The Civil Hospital, which caters to more than 1,500 patients every day, is facing shortage of staff, especially paramedical staff and class IV employees.

Deflating the tall claims of political leaders, there is no intensive care unit (ICU) at any government hospital to provide concentrated emergency medical care to the patients.

The Bathinda Civil Hospital had got a six-bed ICU about 15 years ago but the unit never got fully functional in the absence of required medical infrastructure, ventilators, doctors, paramedical and auxiliary staff.

Against 72 sanctioned posts of nursing staff at the Civil Hospital, there are only 51 available.

The hygiene of the hospital could be gauged from the fact that against the 70 sanctioned posts of class IV employees, there are only 29 workers.

Interestingly, these posts were sanctioned for the Civil Hospital about 15 years ago.

Though there has been a rise in the number of outdoor and indoor patients at the hospital during these years, the number of paramedical and class IV employees decreased.

Over the last 10 years, there many new units such as the dialysis unit and non-communicable disease unit have come up at the Civil Hospital.

Many paramedical staff members were shifted from the indoor and outdoor patient units to these new non-clinical units, thus intensifying the staff shortage.

In the absence of paramedical staff and class IV employees to assist the doctors in the treatment of patients, the capability of a doctor is hit, doctors said.

Moreover, in this political active area, it was highly unrealistic to expect optimum performance from doctors and auxiliary staff as they, most of the times, were overburdened with protocol and VVIP security duties, both official and unofficial, say insiders.

Dr Harbhajan Ram, senior medical officer (SMO), Civil Hospital, admits the acute shortage of paramedical and auxiliary staff has hit the medical services.

Besides huge OPD of more than 1,500 patients every day at different units of the hospital, including maternity and children units, the Civil Hospital has more than 100 daily indoor patients.

Beside doctors, the auxiliary staff are also important and necessary to take care of the patients, the SMO said.

The ICU at the hospital remained non-functional as there was no adequate staff, including anesthetist and intensivist (critical care specialist), at the hospital.

Most the patients required to be treated at the ICU are referred to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, situated at a distance of about 70 km from here.

Sometimes, this 70 km journey for a critical patient ends in a tragedy, doctors said.

Not only the numerous VVIP duties, the ‘sifarish’ (recommendation) by politicians to adjust paramedical staff at some selective places is another problem.

While some nursing staff members are teaching at Government GNM College here, many others have got their postings on deputation at urban dispensaries in the town.

Staff crunch

• Having earned the sobriquet ‘Badal’s political capital’ a decade ago, Bathinda witnessed the political grooming of many new faces in the recent past, but the health services in this ‘political citadel’ of Akalis have failed to make a matching progress
• The Bathinda Civil Hospital had got a six-bed ICU about 15 years ago but the unit never got fully functional in the absence of required medical infrastructure, ventilators, doctors, paramedical and auxiliary staff
• The hygiene of the hospital could be gauged from the fact that against the 70 sanctioned posts of class IV employees, there are only 29 workers