Nellore: Staff crunch hits government medical college, Government General Hospital

Nellore: AC Subba Reddy Government Medical College and Government General Hospital, linked to the College, continue to suffer without adequate teaching staff, medical officers and paramedical staff even as the first batch students of the college are taking final year exams. Thanks to the role of ruling party leaders, who are liberally recommending deputations for professors, associate and assistant professors posted to the college to work elsewhere in the state.

Worst hit due to the lack of teaching staff are students and patients coming to the hospital.

Authorities are worried over the future of the institution as their pleas to the Department of Medical Education to address the shortage of staff have been falling on deaf ears since the last four years.

Badly affected because of the shortage are Gynaecology and Pediatrics Departments that are overflowing with patients round-the-clock.

There is only one professor now though there are four posts and all the four associate professor posts have been lying vacant. The department is being run by seven assistant professors and one post is lying vacant.

In case of ENT wing, there is no professor or associate and the show is being run by one assistant professor alone.

The situation is being attributed to professors, associate professors and assistant professors, who are posted to Nellore, managing to work in their place of choice using political clout, a senior faculty member said.

Another blow to the hospital is the government doing away with Senior Residents’ system where students must work for one year in the hospital, after postgraduation.

AP government was forced to abolish the condition because neighbouring Telangana did so.

Eighty odd senior residents used to compensate for the posts lying vacant and their absence now has increased the work load of faculty manifold.

Not only teaching staff, the posts of attendants, data entry operators, lab technicians, Male and Female Nurse Orderlies, ECG technicians, theatre assistants and anaesthesia technicians have been lying vacant, causing innumerable problems to the authorities concerned.

Sources in the institution said that it has become a herculean task for them to ensure the sterilisation of surgical equipment, clothes, steroid dress of patients, among others, at Central Sterilisation Department on a daily basis because they have only two dhobis as against the sanctioned strength of nine.

The CT Scan machine is out of order since a longtime and there is no move to repair the equipment.

Now, the medical officers are praying for speedy completion of the Diagnostic Block under construction as it will get a new CT Scan and other equipment.

In case of Forensic Department also, only five people are doing the work out of 16 and the burden doubles, if anyone goes on leave as they have to carry out post-mortems too on a regular basis.

“We have excellent multi-storey buildings for College, Hospital and few other departments, apart from most advanced equipment but don’t have manpower to make better use of the infrastructure. It may sound odd but we have no electrician or plumber too to attend to repairs in case of emergency,” an official in the Medical College alleged, pointing to the pitiable conditions in which they are working.