Dehradun: Services at Doon Hospital hampered due to staff shortage

Dehradun: Complaints from patients have been piling up at the Government Doon Medical College and Hospital as the hospital is facing a severe shortage of personnel at the Government Doon Medical Hospital. Several appointments and surgeries are delayed or cancelled at the hospital, resulting in chaotic situations.

Patients have been suffering for the past few months as around 600 medical staff were relieved from their position on March 31 leading to a shortage of staff, an overload of excessive work and no new recruitments in the past three months. Due to the said reason, the hospital has been referring the patients to private hospitals. As a result, the number of referrals to higher centres like AIIMS Rishikesh and Delhi has also gone up.

The COVID-19 ward at the hospital has been converted into a general ward and other wards have also merged due to the overload of patients. According to the hospital authorities, the hospital will run as smoothly as before after the recruitment of more staff. 

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TOI reports that a pregnant woman was supposed to get surgery to remove her fetus at the hospital which was rescheduled to four days later. Due to the delay in the operation, the fetus died in her womb on Tuesday.

Concerned by her situation, the woman's family sought an explanation from the hospital authorities. The officials said, "The procedure followed was normal, as the primary approach is to wait for labour to begin before passing the dead fetus."

The matter also reached the chief medical superintendent, Dr KC Pant who expressed his concern by commenting on the situation "The matter about the surgery was brought to us. We have initiated an inquiry but we met the patient. She is doing fine and waiting for the fetus to pass through labour is the natural procedure. Trauma on the body that comes from surgery is always the last resort."

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"Ideally there shouldn't be any referrals but the lack of staff has affected our day-to-day operations. We have requested three nursing colleges to send in the final year students for assistance in the gynaecology department. Besides, senior students from our colleges will also be soon deployed. Meanwhile, we are working with the health department to work out the staff crunch issue," said Dr Pant.