Saturday, 8 October 2011

Overcrowded SMGS Hospital - patients' nightmare, as Govt. still sleeping

Tahir Mushtaq


JAMMU, Oct 7: The man who signed the treaty of accession, Maharaja Hari Singh, laid the foundation of a hospital in Jammu and Kashmir in 1940. But instead of naming it after him, he christened it on his great-grandfather’s name, as Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital. That makes this hospital one of the oldest ones, but it also has the dubious distinction of being one of the most overcrowded in the state.

Its wards are overcrowded and when the doctors refuse admission to patients, they have no choice but to get admitted in private hospitals.

On an average 500 patients attend the different Out Patient Departments (OPDs). As per official records, the hospital also receives 80-100 indoor patients on daily basis. State government's plan to thin it out from the crowd of people by shifting the other departments of ENT and dermatology from here has become the victim of bureaucratic delay.

Government had a proposal to convert the hospital into the exclusive mother and child care hospital, by shifting both the dermatology and ENT departments from here to the Government Medical College (GMC).

In fact land was also identified at the GMC where the dermatology and ENT departments were to be shifted. The idea was to acquire the land in the periphery of the hospital so that more wards could be opened to accommodate the women” a former Medical Superintendent of the hospital said.

“Since this is a tertiary care hospital, we receive admissions from all the parts of Jammu, that makes it most crowded, he added.

“We also receive normal deliveries at the hospital. We need to set right the referral system in Jammu and the doctors at the district and the sub district hospital who refer the patients to SMGS should give a reason for so, said, a doctor, wishing not to be quoted.

“It is seriously crippled with the staff shortage. There is a staff shortage of 40 per cent in the hospital as per the medical norms” sources said.

SMGS hospital is one of the main hospital of Jammu region catering a huge number of patients coming from far flung area of the region. The hospital is specialized in pediatrics and gynecology besides skin diseases.

If sources were believed in this 550 bedded hospital there are about 800 to 1000 patients are admitted in the hospital on an average. And two patients were forced to accommodate in one bed.

The concern minister had recently called a meeting in this regard and directed the concern department to do the needful to rectify the problems being faced by the patients.

“At various instances the patients’ complaints that they are not getting proper treatment as required, but we are unable to give satisfactory treatment with proper concentration though the infrastructure is also not suitable” said a PG doctor.

However, Medical Superintendent SMGS Dr A K Sharma said the hospital have two more wards to accommodate with required infrastructure to accommodate patients, but due to availability of required number of medical and para-medical staff we are unable to utilize these wards.

He added that if we admitted the patients in these wards who will take care of them.

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