Health and Medical Education Department has its own special importance all the time and under all circumstances which hardly needs to be specified. While we avail of the various facilities from available Government hospitals, we as ordinary citizens, find that services and facilities provided were inadequate and at times quite poor. The fault , however, lies somewhere else besides to some extent in individual hospital managements. We feel the biggest problem encountered by these hospitals is the inadequate staff strength commensurate with the rush of the OPD patients and those who were admitted for treatment of various ailments. Is there a mechanism in place to keep reviewing the scenario of problems faced by these hospitals so that remedial action could be taken in time? Are these hospitals, especially at district levels, having specialist Doctors to attend to serious cases of surgeries and treatment? This assumes more importance looking to the all-round disturbances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, in tackling which undoubtedly the medical staff at all levels, has contributed a lot even at personal risks. Are inoperative and defective machines, equipment and other accessories being repaired or replaced in time so that the patients did not suffer. What arrangement was there in vogue to take stock of, replenish, improve and add to the existing infrastructure in these hospitals? Last but not the least, is a grievances redressing system , at least in city and district hospitals, available and operating and who conducted the periodic audit of complaints received and disposed of the same in a time bound manner.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha took an initiative within a few days of his taking over in arranging a review of the department in a meeting which was attended by the concerned authorities. Perhaps, having got some feedback about the problems or issues confronting the hospitals and the resultant inconvenience faced by the OPD and indoor patients, he directed the concerned authorities to make adequate medical facilities available at these hospitals. However, with it emerge basic issues which have either been addressed in halves and pieces or in an unplanned way and that is about not filling up vacancies of the posts of Doctors, specialist Doctors and para medical staff. This is one of the biggest obstacles in providing satisfactory and prompt medical attention to the patients followed only by inadequate space and equipments like dialysis machine , X-Ray , CT Scan machines etc getting at times abruptly inoperative without immediate repairs and replacements . The system of maintaining proper inventories both of the medical equipments and medicines as asked for by the Lieutenant Governor and his insistence on strengthening of the monitoring system is a welcome step . Updating of such an information on official website regularly should also be done through other modes of conveying the same to the visiting patients as most of the people do not access or have means to have required information from the website.
We have been, through these columns, stressing upon the need to take into account the needs of the people in respect of healthcare in rural areas and that, Doctors must serve such areas at least once in the career for a minimum period of three years and not ‘manage’ to remain attached to city hospitals while in fact shown in official records as posted in rural areas. The Lt. Governor has addressed this issue by directing arranging of additional incentives to them while posted in rural areas. It is heartening to observe , at the same time, that an undeclared moratorium on recruitment and filling up of vacancies of Doctors, nurses and other health workers appears to have been lifted. He directed for recruitment of Cardiologists, Radiologists and other specialists in district hospitals . We welcome such a much required decisions taken to tide over the prevailing situation in most of the hospitals . Only with implementation of these directives , especially the ones which are target oriented , into actual actions could the system of patients’ care be ensured in a better way to a larger extent. The other problem faced by the critical patients is about the difficulties faced by them in respect of dialysis facilities not available at all hospitals especially at district levels. It is again a welcome step for deciding and instructions given about all district hospitals to have dialysis facilities. The hospitals needed to vastly improve upon the cleanliness , hygienic and sanitization conditions and enforce strictly the entire ambiance been kept quite neat and clean even if it amounted to strictly enforcing fuller cooperation from the visiting patients and their attendants.
Follow our WhatsApp channel
