ENT hospital lab lacks staff, closed

Tribune News Service

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Amritsar, July 17

The laboratory for patients at the Government ENT Hospital, Majitha road, also known as Ram Lal Eye Hospital, is shut down for the past many months because of shortage of laboratory technicians to run the place. As a result, patients have to get their tests done from private laboratories.

The Government ENT Hospital is associated with the Government Medical College. Interestingly, another institute associated with the Government Medical College, the Government Dental College, has more laboratory technicians with it.

As per an RTI reply, the Government Dental College has 10 laboratory technicians, out of which only two are working at the laboratory. According to the Government Dental College authorities, the eight other laboratory technicians are working at other places.

Doctors at the ENT hospital have in the past sent samples of the patients admitted to the hospital to the laboratory at Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. A patient said, “A large number of patients visit this hospital daily. In the absence of a lab, they all face problems.”

RTI activist Ravinder Sultanwind said, “There is a distance of more than 1.5 km between the two hospitals. Most of the time, the patients prefer to get the tests done from nearby private labs because they are not aware of the lab inside Guru Nanak Dev Hospital.”

Sultanwind said if the ENT hospital has a well-equipped lab lying closed, the Department of Medical Education and Research should send the surplus staff from some other hospital. “Even Guru Nanak Dev Hospital has a large number of lab technicians who are not working in laboratories. It will be better if employees are assigned the duties for which they were trained,” said Sultanwind.