Vashi civic hospital in a
mess
By Dinesh Kamath
Above Picture:
NMMC Hospital at Vashi
NAVI MUMBAI: Vashi
Civic Hospital is visited by a huge number of patients but the staff members attending
to these patients are not adequate in number. There is scarcity of nurses owing
to which those nurses who are on duty have to overwork. Each nurse has to do
the job of at least three or more nurses. These problems lead to these nurses
suffering from stress which in turn gives birth to other stress-related
ailments.
Owing to scarcity of nurses, those nurses already
employed here can’t even go on leave. They get no time to attend to their
family members too owing to the huge amount of work they have to do in the
hospital. They even have to work overtime many a times which results in
occurrence of domestic problems for these nurses.
Whether it is general ward of the hospital or Intensive
Care Unit or OPD, one can notice the scarcity of nurses here and huge number of
patients who are seeking medical treatments.
These nurses did ask the authority to recruit more nurses
so that they don’t find their duties too burdensome. The hospital does hire
nurses on contract basis but once the contract period is over, these nurses
have to quit owing to which the nurses who are left behind have to perform
additional duties. There are times when some nurses go on maternity leave and
some on medical leave. At such times the nurses who are on duty face a real
tough time owing to load of works that fall on their shoulders. Fed up of such
horrible situation in the hospital, some nurses prefer to get themselves transferred
and when they leave the authorities do not even care to replace them by new
recruits.
If one goes by the statistics relating to nurse-patient
ratio, one is bound to be horrified by the big number of patients each nurse
has to attend to. The nurses of the hospital are totally fed up by the
insensitivity displayed by the authorities in tackling this major problem.
“Owing to this problem, it is not only the nurses who
suffer but also the patients cannot get the medical treatment up to their
satisfactions. Due to the negligence displayed by the authorities it is the
name of the hospital that gets tarnished. It is high time the authorities took
up this issue in most serious manner and tackled it once and for all,” said a
nurse belonging to this hospital and who sought anonymity.
“Owing to shortage of nurses, we have to wait for hours
to get the medical treatment. Some ailments need to be attended to urgently
since even a little delay can convert that small ailment into a major one. Such
cases have occurred in this hospital but yet nobody cares,” said one patient of
the hospital.
The authorities of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation have
been time and again informed about this serious issue but their reply is that
things happen according to procedures in a government set up and that they, on
their part, have done their duties of asking the government to recruit
sufficient nurses in the hospital. “The ball is now in the court of the
government and we can’t do anything but just wait for government to take
necessary action. Till then the best we can do is hire some nurses on contract
basis to make life easy for permanent nurses in the hospital,” said one NMMC
official.
Even the doctors have to pay the penalty for there being
shortage of nurses in the hospital. The recent scuffle with the on-duty doctor
by a patient’s relative is a case in point. The attack on the doctor had led to
all the other doctors stopping their duties and going on protest strike. Only
after the administration promised tight security for doctors and other staff
members in the hospital, the doctors called off the strike and resumed their
duties.
The NMMC authorities and the hospital authorities now
have to work out two plans – one to ensure that there is adequate staff and the
other to provide adequate security to every staff member, especially the
doctors.
The police commissioner too has been approached to try
and help out a perfect security plan within the hospital. The hospital
comprises of its own security staff as well as police security but both are not
adequate enough to prevent forced intrusions. Hence there is a desperate
attempt being made to tighten the security in the civic hospital at Vashi from
every angle – whether it is strength of the staff or number of security or
police persons or the number of patients who should be allowed to enter the
hospital at a time etc.
