PANAJI
Even as efforts to arrest the mortality rate from Covid haven't as yet yielded desirable results, the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC&H) at Bambolim is running short of clinical hands.
Strangely, given the overwhelming task at hand, the decision of the premier health institution's authorities to leave its medicine department's head Dr Edwin Gomes assigned no duties is flummoxing.
Not long ago Gomes was hailed as Goa's frontline warrior Phantom after the first set of Covid-19 positive patients recovered under the care of the team led by him.
He headed the team the set up the first Covid hospital at the ESI medical facility in Margao and worked there for 90 days on the trot before he took his first break.
But he tested positive himself and also got into an unsavoury engagement with the authorities over leave sought.
Meanwhile junior doctors are facing the brunt at the GMC&H as those seeking hospitalisation are crowding the Covid wards.
Resident doctors doing duty in Covid wards told The Goan on condition of anonymity that some patients lay on the floor and even on trolleys bereft of adequate care as patients far outnumber the quantum that care-givers including doctors could possibly handle.
A crisis of sorts at hand, the doctors have raised a red flag against the refusal of the higher-ups to shift patients to the South Goa facilities which have spare bed capacity.
Also, non-Covid medical treatment has been thrown into total disarray at the State's premier health institution and inexplicably medicine and pulmonary consultants are assigned administrative roles.
"Only a few doctors are on duty in rotation causing exhaustion. Dr Edwin' services are not being utilised. Dr Sunanda Amonkar, Dr Uday Kakodkar and Dr Anar Khandeparkar have been drafted in administrative roles which can be shouldered by non-clinical officials," the doctors said.
