Rourkela Government Hospital used to be a premier health care centre for people of three states, now languishes despite tall promises by the government.
A case in point is the mother and child care centre. This five storied building was completed one and half year behind the schedule. Finally, it was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on 22 October, 2017.
“We are only operating the OPD there and nothing else,” said CMO RGH Dr Ramachandra Behera. Dr Behera informed that, “the whole building is operating on temporary connection including the OPD, which is functional now. However, we require three phase power connection to it.
” Amongst other things, the CMO informed, “It is the lack of fire safety arrangements preventing us to shift the entire gyaenic and paediatrics wards to that building.”
The Capital Hospital at Bhubaneswar and RGH were brought to the same level, as a result the CMO post was abolished instead it was made as Director.
However, when the Bhubaneswar director is enjoying all functional powers and responsibility of the post this is not same here. “No I am lacking many of powers of a director and we have been requesting for that and nothing seems to be working in this regard.”
Behera, who is to retire next month said, “for doing administrative and other works we require at least five clerks and at this moment I only have one at my disposal, who looks after all administrative correspondence.” RGH has the status of district level health centre.
“At Sundergarh they have 20 clerks because it is a DLH centre but here we have nothing,” lamented the CMO. Apart from Sundergarh, and its nearby districts like Deogarh, Keonjhar, and along with that also from Chattisgarh and Jharkhand patients come to this hospital. Amongst other department these patients come here for the gyeanic and paediatrics treatment.
“We require four for the paediatrics ICU and another five doctors for the entire department. Presently, the department has two contractual doctors under the district mineral fund along with two permanent doctors. The special neo natal care unit (SNCU) requires four and has three.”
There is an additional requirement of five doctors. The trauma centre has two surgeons against three, one orthopaedics against two, no cardio and neurologists.
In addition, the ICU requirement is four and has one, who is not again trained, informed the CMO. Similarly, RGH trauma centre needs OT assistant, 6, ward attendant, 12, and staff nurse, 12 but there are none, he informed.
“We have been asked to use the available resource for staff nurse. For RGH the requirement is 150 as sanctioned strengths and presently we have only 61 staff nurses, so where from the question of managing arises,” informed Behera. Presently, the hospital requires 69 doctors and has only 32.
Recently three doctors one gyeanic and two in medicine joined here but three doctors, one each from ophthalmology, surgery and gyeanic were transferred out following promotion. “These positions remained vacant and there is no replacements for them there by we face serious problem,” said Behera.
He also said, “Managing a hospital of this stature is not possible with contractual doctors, because we do not have much of authority on them.” The contractual doctors are being paid from the district mineral fund.
Presently the indoor bed strength of RGH is 128, but it is functioning at double the number at any given moment. The SAIL constructed 250 bedded indoor is yet to be made fully functional.
Health minister Pratap Jena during his last visit had promised that the hospital would receive four specialists, technicians and other required persons soon, but that remained a distant dream so far.