the goan I network
PONDA
Patients and their attendants fill up the 220-bedded Sub District Hospital (SDH) at Ponda on a daily basis, but they have found it increasingly difficult to find doctors, specialists and other medical staff at the hospital, which is yet to complete five years.
This is because, as many as 109 of the 395 regular sanctioned posts are vacant at the Ponda SDH and to make matters worse, 39 of the 109 vacant posts have now lapsed.
These details were provided to Ponda MLA Ravi Naik in a starred question in the recently concluded assembly session.
Inaugurated on December 19, 2012, the Ponda SDH was earlier known as the ID Hospital and the old ID hospital building was demolished in 2007 to construct the new hospital. Work was to have been completed by 2009, but a delay in the construction work led to the inauguration of the hospital only on December 19, 2012.
Right from the very top, the medical superintendent cum deputy director, to the lower staff such as ward boys/girls, a number of posts are vacant at the Ponda SDH.
Significantly, the highest number of medical posts vacant at the hospital are those pertaining to staff nurses and medical officers.
Fourteen of the 114 sanctioned posts of staff nurses still lie vacant and 10 of the 36 sanctioned posts of medical officers are also vacant. Of these 10 vacant posts, eight of them have now lapsed.
Besides, five of the seven posts of pharmacists are vacant and all five vacant posts have lapsed.
What would also be of concern to patients is the fact that the hospital does not have a single senior ENT surgeon, senior orthopaedic surgeon, senior physician, senior psychiatrist, senior neurologist, junior surgeons, junior opthalmic surgeon, matron, biochemist, assistant biochemist, anaesthetical technician, ECG technician and Opthalmic assistant.
To meet the shortfall in some areas, staff have been appointed on consultancy/contract basis and deployed from other government hospitals, while others are on contract under National Health Mission (NHM) at the Ponda SDH. They include pharmacists (AYUSH), nurses and
lab technicians.
Incidentally, former health ministers Laxmikant Parsekar and Francis D'Souza had frequently assured to resolve the shortage of doctors, specialists and staff at the Ponda SDH, but official data reveals that the problem is yet to be addressed.
