Manpower shortage grips Faridpur General Hospital
Health services at Faridpur General Hospital are being affected due to shortage of doctors and other staffers.
Established in 1917 with a capacity of 20 beds, the hospital was upgraded to a 50-bed one in 1985. In 2002, it was further upgraded to a 100-bed capacity.
However, the authorities did not allocate necessary manpower for the upgraded facility, alleged locals.
Currently, there are only 17 doctors against an allocated 37 posts and most other posts in the hospital remain vacant, they also said.
At present, there is no senior consultant at departments of surgery, skin and orthopaedics while junior consultant positions at eye, radiology and pathology departments lie vacant.
Besides, the posts of anaesthetist, pathologist, radiologist, two sub-registrars of gynae, two sub-registrars of surgery, sub-registrars of ENT, two sub-registrars of medicine, two posts of EMO, two medical officers, one blood bank officer and one medical officer (herbal) post are also vacant.
Moreover, the available doctors and staff members are not serving the patients in their best capacity. Many of the service seekers further complained of poor service and unprofessional conduct of many of the hospital employees and doctors.
Services at the hospital’s emergency are not available from the afternoon till the next morning, they also alleged.
During a recent visit to the hospital, this correspondent found a large crowd of patients waiting for a long time at the outpatient service counter.
Some of the service seekers alleged that the doctors often allow more time to medical representatives from different pharmaceutical companies than the patients.
Ismail Kazi, 65, from Chartapakhola village, said, “I came here at 9:00am and could not see a doctor after waiting till 12:00 noon.”
Ozufa Begum, 55, from Ashapur village in Boalmari upazila, said, “I came from Boalmari to see a doctor around 9:00am. I’ve been waiting for about two hours now.”
Ganesh Agarwala, a resident medical officer of the hospital, said at least 150 to 200 patients get treatment from the hospital’s outpatient section every day. “But we don’t have sufficient doctors to treat them.”
Faridpur Civil Surgeon Enamul Haque said, “We are suffering terribly for the shortage of doctors and other staffers.”
They wrote to the higher authorities seeking additional manpower, but they were yet to see any response, he added.
Comments