Workforce crunch at BJ Medical College: MARD demands recruitment of more doctors, health staff

Trainee doctors from the B J Medical College and Sassoon Hospital have immediately demanded that the authorities should recruit a new team of doctors, nurses, cleaning staff, and required manpower, to treat Covid patients instead of burdening the trainee doctors with immense work pressure.

 Dr. Dnyaneshwar Jamkar, secretary of the MARD, told Medical Dialogues, "In 2020, while we worked to keep the death toll down, a large part of the country was able to enjoy the comforts of home, including several qualified MBBS graduates who did not answer the call for more doctors. Now as cases rise again, we are compelled to think of our long-term future. What happens if Residents are once more forced to work outside of their chosen specialties? We end up with a generation of incompetent specialists. This is not just unfair to us, but a betrayal of the social contract: that the state must provide for the health of its citizens, and that includes the maintenance of non-Covid services."

"Many non-covid services were shut down for nearly nine months. This means that a three-year residency was shortened by nearly a year, and residents were deprived of the experience that comes with a normal residency. Consequently, patients were deprived of essential services like Dialysis and their regular medications, and many of their conditions worsened", added the doctor.

He further stated, " Other than the fact that we have lost one precious academic year, the government should also note that We would get the degree, but there won't be any practical knowledge. Hence, the specialist doctor might be incompetent in handling Non-COVID cases. In the future when the other diseases had to be maintained, I want to know how the government will strategize then to run the healthcare with incompetent specialist doctors."

The doctor also stated that this is not the issue of B J Medical College and Sassoon Hospital only, in fact, there are almost 3000 trainee doctors in the state who also had to face similar problems. " There is a shortage of basic medical equipment, medicines and other things like the PPE kits given to us are of very poor quality and almost 51 resident doctors have been infected by COVID last month alone. They are literary sending us in a war against COVID without giving us the weapons i.e. the proper equipment for it. This needs to be addressed", stated Dr. Jamkar.

MARD Pune president, Dr. Vijay Jadhav also commented on the issue and stated, "This crisis began in March 2020; it is now March 2021. The authorities have had ONE YEAR to analyze the lacunae in healthcare and make the necessary changes. And yet, we are back to square one. As authorities did not bother to hire more doctors, fill up vacant posts, renew contracts of outside staff nurses, make technicians and adjunct staff available, it is once again PG Students who are being abused and overworked in the name of Covid. We are bearing the brunt of the lack of disaster preparedness at the cost of our future and at the cost of patients who rely on us for non-covid care. Sassoon Hospital is the only government tertiary center for several districts. People from all over the state come here for subsidized healthcare. We do not feel it is right to deny them this by posting us in Covid and reducing routine services."

Stating that the lack of manpower and resources is also endangering doctors' safety, the association stated, " There is no security for crowd control and doctors have to deal with angry patients through no fault of their own. In such situations, doctors are forced to do the work of security and janitorial staff too, as no one has bothered to fill up those vacancies or create ad hoc posts. We, therefore, ask you to take the necessary steps this time to ensure that the brunt of the work is borne not by resident doctors who are still students: Let non-teaching institutes take up the burden this time."

The former Secretary of MARD Pune, Dr. Prasant stated, " the point is not only the academic loss of the medicos but the fact that the COVID patients are also being deprived of a specialists' consultation. There are many registered specialist doctors in the state who should be employed in COVID duties and not trainee doctors who have no professional expertise in the area. The doctors can just check the oxygen saturation and afterward refer the patient but what is needed is specialists' intervention." He also inquired who will the responsibility of the Non-COVID patients who are not getting proper attention from the resident doctors as they are being overburdened with COVID work. The situation is really bad and the administration failed to manage it properly. It should be managed properly or else people will die due to failure or proper administration."

The association has also delivered a letter to the Dean of the institute stating, "Residents have already suffered a loss of 9 months to their academics. Due to lockdown and alike situations, there was a drastic dip in the procedural and patient variety expected in normal residency. MD/MS candidates additionally have a thesis for which we are not able to collect an adequate sample size already due to the brunt of lockdown. Any further loss makes the thesis entirely unfeasible. Any further loss risks creating an entire generation of incompetent doctors who will not be at par compared to other institutes. As our dean you are also our academic guardian and our academic and professional growth is our institute's responsibility."

The association has put forward the following demands:

1. Vacant posts of Post PG Jr must be filled.

2. Pune municipal corporation must take a greater role, and responsibility as was taken by other municipal corporations.

3. Filling up of posts of technicians and clerks so that their services can be utilized in covid.

4. One representative of MARD to be present in all college council meetings and should be involved in major decisions affecting residents.

5. Residents ultimately being students, post-residency members of the institution to take a more active role.