MARGAO
Even as the storm kicked up in the Goa Medical College and Hospital surrounding Health Minister Vishwajit Rane subsided on Tuesday, the South Goa district hospital was back in the news over the same old issue “ shortage of beds.
The acute bed shortage at the district hospital, commissioned around half a decade ago, assumes significance and comes against the backdrop of reports that the government has set in motion the process to hand over the hospital building’s top two floors to set up a Nursing college.
Incidentally, the South Goa district hospital initially had a provision for 800-beded hospital, but the bed capacity was later reduced to 500 when the hospital was commissioned at the peak of Covid pandemic, leaving the top two floors for a nursing college or a private medical college.
Questions are being raised in the corridors of the district hospital and outside why the government is hell bent in setting up a nursing college on the building’s top two floors when the hospital is facing acute bed shortage almost every day.
Tuesday’s incident again brought to the fore that patients have to wait in a queue either on a stretcher or a wheel chair, before someone is discharged to make way for his/her admission.
In the instant, case, a patient with epilepsy was rushed to the district hospital early Tuesday morning. The patient, however, could not be admitted for want of beds since there were already 85 admissions in a ward having 75-bed capacity. As the patient was kept waiting on a wheel chair, the relatives called up Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai to intervene, only to be told that the patient will have to wait for some time since the ward is full of patients.
Slamming the government for the move to set up a nursing college in the district hospital, Sardesai wondered why the nursing college proposal is being bulldozed by the government when the top two floors can be utilised to set up additional beds. “The district hospital was planned to meet the requirements for the next 25 years. However, we are facing bed shortage in 2025, but the government is pursuing a nursing college on the two floors,” he said.
He added: “A nursing college can come up anywhere, and not necessarily at the district hospital. On the other hand, will the government build another hospital to tide over the bed shortage at the district hospital? I only hope better sense prevails and the entire district hospital is put to use for the intended purpose.”
Sources at the district hospital told The Goan that bed shortage at the hospital is not something new with the medicine ward facing bed shortage almost every day. “We are helpless in the matter. On the one hand, we face bed shortage and on the other hand we do not want to send patients back to the GMC or private hospital. That’s the reason why patients are accommodated on stretchers and wheel chairs before they are allotted beds after the discharge of patients,” sources added.
