Thiruvananthapuram: While the government is all set to open new medical college at the general hospital here on Wednesday, the existing ones are facing shortage of doctors, nursing and paramedical staff adversely affecting patient care services.
The new medical college which is the tenth in the public sector, is being set up combining the services of general hospital and women and children hospital Thycaud. While health minister V. S. Sivakumar is quite elated over the new medical college and promises to have one each in all 14 districts, the doctors are not quite happy.
A sizeable section of doctors in the medical college sector and Kerala Government Medical Officers Association (KGMOA) had opposed the new medical college at the general hospital and Konni citing shortage of staff and infrastructure facilities.
The doctors had opposed the new colleges saying that the newly formed Idukki and Manjeri were facing serious problems. Kerala Government Medical College Teachers Association (KGMCTA) has expressed reservations over combining medical college and state health sector doctors in the newly opened medical colleges.
The association has called for sanctioning of more posts at the level of assistant and associate professors. Shortage of doctors has hit patient care services including in patient and outpatient wings.
The staff shortage has also adversely affected the expansion programme connected organ transplant projects in government medical sector. The premier Trivandrum Medical College which has 200 MBBS seats should ideally have 900 beds, but existing bed strength is 2750 beds.
Similarly, Kozhikode medical college has 250 medical seats, the highest in the state. Going by the seats, it should have 1100 beds. But the existing bed strength is 2800.
Medical experts say the government should focus on existing medical colleges and enhance facilities in district, general and taluk hospitals to ease the pressure on super speciality hospitals.
