Patients suffer as shortage of nurses ails evening shifts too

Sameer Singh
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, January 31

Patients at the paediatric ward of Women and Children Hospital in the city are at the receiving end in the absence of staff nurses for the evening and night shifts. Owing to acute shortage of staff nurses, the quality of health services has been affected adversely.

Notably, after a number of staff nurses were selected to undertake bridge course to become Community Health Officers at village level, no fresh appointments were made by the Health Department.

Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in the number of suspected swine flu patients in the past few weeks. The admission of patients requiring regular monitoring and critical care has also increased now.

Sources said earlier, there was no staff nurse for the night shift but of late, absence of staff nurse for the evening shift has worsened things further. As a result, the children admitted to the paediatric ward (ground floor) are shifted to the maternity ward (on the first floor) during the night. The staff nurse at the maternity ward then has additional burden of taking care of patients from the paediatric ward. While it is easy for the parents of children requiring minimal medical care to manage, the sick children who require critical care are either referred to the government hospital at Faridkot or their parents have to get them admitted to private hospitals in the city.

A senior functionary of the hospital said the workload of the medical staff at the maternity ward, that often remains packed to its capacity with post natal patients, has increased manifolds.

Keeping in view the number of admissions at the unit, there is a requirement of at least four staff nurses. With only one staff nurse available for the morning shift, quality of medical services has taken a hit in the past many months.

On an average, around six to eight children from the paediatric ward are transferred every night to the maternity ward, that often has a presence of 50 patients, thereby affecting the quality of medical care administered to patients in the hospital.

A group of doctors at the unit said the hospital did not necessarily need medical infrastructure, but if it failed to address the basic problems of appointing the required staff, then patients would not get even the basic treatment at the hospital. Quality care could be ensured at the hospital only after appointing more staff nurses, they said.

Sukhjinder Singh Gill, Senior Medical Officer, Women and Children Hospital, said “After staff nurses from the hospital were appointed as Community Health Officer at other health centres, there has been acute shortage of staff nurses here. No fresh appointments were made by the Health Department. We face a lot of difficulty in providing medical care to the patients. We have written to the higher authorities regarding the shortage of staff nurses and are waiting for their response.”

Patients of paediatric ward bear the brunt

• After a number of staff nurses were selected to undertake bridge course to become Community Health Officers at village level, no fresh appointments were made by the Health Department
• Earlier, there was no staff nurse for the night shift but of late, absence of staff nurse for the evening shift has worsened things further
•  As a result, the children admitted to the paediatric ward (ground floor) are shifted to the maternity ward (on the first floor) during the night 
• The staff nurse at the maternity ward then has additional burden of taking care of patients from the paediatric ward