Jajpur: Health services at the Jajpur District Headquarters Hospital have been completely paralysed, thanks to the shortage of doctors and lack of adequate infrastructure.
What is appalling is, despite spending crores of rupees for the makeover of DHH with all modern facilities, healthcare has not improved, creating several problems for patients and their attendants. Adding to their woes is the shortage of doctors and other medical staff.
Out of the 63 sanctioned doctors’ posts, only 11 are attending to the medical needs of patients coming from and outside the district.
Due to lack of adequate infrastructure and availability of beds in the hospital, patients, including pregnant women and children, are forced to undergo treatment on the floor. Most of the time, the patients are referred to other hospitals, putting the lives of emergency and critical patients at risk. With no preliminary treatment due to shortage of doctors, many patients have even died while being referred to other hospitals, reports said.
On the other hand, the medical authorities use the staff shortage as an excuse to transfer/refer patients to other hospitals without providing any treatment. Moreover, doctors’ shortage has resulted in long queues and hours of waiting for medical attention.
Expressing anguish over poor healthcare at the DHH, an attendant, Kamini Jena, said, “We have come to the hospital and our patient who is pregnant is forced to sleep on the hospital veranda. There is no fan or mosquito net.”
On March 26, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik opened a Rs14- crore building for Mother and Child Health (MCH). However, the building is yet to be made operational due to shortage of doctors and para-medical staff, sources said.
“Efforts are on to appoint doctors against the vacancies as PAC exam results have been declared. The process of postings has not started yet and we hope things will streamline once the recruitment process is complete,” Jajpur Chief District Medical Officer (DMO), Barish Kumar Dash said.