Rourkela: Acute shortage of doctors in Rourkela Government Hospital (RGH) has badly affected health services in the government hospital here.
According to sources the hospital presently has 31 doctors, whereas it needs at least120 of them to cater to constantly increasing number of patients visiting the hospital.
As a result the OPD always has long snaking queues of patients, while those admitted to various wards of the hospital are deprived of proper health care services. Though the government had assured to address the issue, but nothing has been done in this regard so far.
RGH was set up with 128 beds with nearly 500 patients visiting the hospital initially. Now, however, more than 1,000 patients visit the hospital on any given day. The hospital has a sanctioned strength of 61 doctors, against which there are only 31 doctors at present. Considering the flow of patients, the hospital now needs at least 120 doctors, say sources.
RGH is a prominent hospital of Sundargarh as most of the cases in the district get referred to this hospital.
Scarcity of doctors at the hospital has resulted in patients often being exploited by private nursing homes of the city, said a member of Spark, a local NGO.
Brokers, employed by private nursing home owners, easily mislead the patients during rush in RGH and get them admitted to private clinics, where they are forced to cough up thousands of rupees for the services which are available free of cost at the government hospital.
When contacted, chief medical officer Dr Ramchandra Behera said they have been asking for more doctors from the government every month but to no avail.
Recently, five doctors have been appointed on contractual basis with the funds of district mineral foundation which has failed to serve the purpose. The government should appoint more permanent doctors to improve the patient service in the hospital, Behera added. PNN