Malda district hospital hit by staff shortage

MALDA, Aug. 24: Owing to lack of staff including doctors the Malda district hospital authorities cannot provide proper health services to hundreds of patients.The district hospital authorities spoke about their problem at the district patients’ welfare committee meeting held on Friday. The health authorities disclosed that they had to run the hospital with 45 doctors when there was 54-sanctioned posts for doctors. Similarly, the district hospital needs to appoint at least 76 nurses to look after patients as presently only 178 sisters are working here. It has 254 sanctioned posts for sisters and the bed capacity of the district hospital has been increased from 500 to 600 beds. More than 70 group D posts are lying vacant. People from neighbouring districts like Murshidabad, North and South Dinajpur as well as patients from Jharkhand and Bihar come for treatment to the Malda district hospital.The health officials had informed the situation to their higher authorities to ease the ongoing problems but nothing materialised. In Friday's meeting it was also decided that an ICU in the district hospital, which was partly constructed six years ago, would be operational soon. n SNS