Staff shortage, VIP duties hamper work in K’shetra hospitals

Nitish Sharma

Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, December 1

Shortage of staff coupled with the emergency and VIP duties given to doctors have affected the healthcare services in Kurukshetra.

There are 122 sanctioned posts of doctors in the district and out of those, 49 are vacant. In Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital in Kurukshetra, 10 of the 42 sanctioned posts of doctors are lying unfilled. There are six community health centres and 15 primary health centres in Kurukshetra.

There is acute shortage at community health centres in the district. At Jhansa, four of the six posts are vacant, at Ladwa five of the seven posts are not filled, at Shahabad three posts are vacant and at Barna three are vacant. The situation is better at Pehowa, where one post is vacant, and at Mathana, where all four sanctioned posts are filled.

A doctor at LNJP hospital said: “Doctors must be kept away from the administrative work and also from VIP duties. When doctors are deployed on VIP duty, it hampers the work and patients suffer. For instance, currently International Gita Mahotsav is being organised and with many VIPs visiting Kurukshetra doctors are required to do VIP duties instead of working in the hospital. The number of surgeons and doctors are sufficient if they are not engaged in VIP and emergency duties.”

Another senior doctor said: “The buildings are being improved and latest machines are being provided but the health services can’t be improved without increasing the number of doctors. We have to understand that the doctors are overburdened and they are not able to give adequate attention to patients, which is also a reason why patients go to private hospitals.”

“Seeing the number of patients, the availability of specialist doctors needs to be increased. If doctors are engaged in emergency duties as well as postmortems, who will see to the patients in OPDs?” he asked.

The footfall at the LNJP is nearly 1,400 a day and nearly 300 deliveries are conducted in a month. Chief Medical Officer Sukhbir Singh said: “We require specialists, including surgeons, and we keep apprising the authorities of the vacant posts.”