The much hyped Seraikela Sadar Hospital remains in the throes of manpower deficiency

Mail News Service

Seraikela, June 24: The Seraikela Sadar Hospital after its conversion from Subdivisional Hospital 14 summers ago, had raised hopes among the district denizens that, at long last, good medical services equipped with modern treatment facilities will be a boon to patients where better cure and care would be available. Such expectations gradually were poured down the gutters and, as of now, the situation continues to remain grim as it had 14 years ago. Maybe, grimmer.

 The Seraikela Sadar Hospital is akin to a hugely decorated restaurant with food menus to titillate the taste buds but all that it serves is stale soup with more than a fly in it. Metaphorically, this observation may not be wrong because the Saraikela Sadar Hospital with all its departments and equipments is far short of expected medical services. The situation cannot be blamed on the medical crew but on acute manpower prevailing in this Sadar Hospital.

Seven departments are functioning with a strength (?) of 14 doctors. The Labour Room, Emergency services, indoor and out patients’ departments (OPD), SNCU and PICU wards for infants and other kids, and the MTC for taking care of malnourished children have been reduced to the status of libraries without books and librarians. There is not a hint of even a single dresser to cover wounds. The situation at the Saraikela Sadar Hospital makes the situation horrendous where patients get the feel of living death and the medical team or whatever may be made of it, has to swallow the bitter pills of accusations, abuses and threats in silent suffering – a situation not of their making. The raves and rants of suffering patients and their attendants are due to the acute manpower crunch.

To add to the bleak situation is the fact that there is not a single security guard in the entire Sadar Hospital premises. Antisocial elements continue to have many a field day as they take away valuable hospital equipment without any qualm or question.

The 14 departments at this Hospital or whatever it is believed to be, run or limp on the strength of just 14 doctors as against 26 posts sanctioned. Eight GNM nurses slog it out while 24 have been provisioned for. Thirteen ANMs and GNMs on deputation from the district’s various Health Centres are bearing the brunt of assisting doctors and groaning and cursing patients. Curiously, the Saraikela Sadar Hospital does not have any GNM and ANM of its own. The overburdened doctors and ANM-GNM nurses on deputation have to grind it out. As if Satan’s sadistic delights were not getting enough pleasure, the regularity of ascending graph of road accident victims exceed the toiling herculean efforts that the medical team has to make. An addition to the gory picture is the fact that ANMs have to attend to treatment of patients in the overflowing Emergency Ward and Labour Room where they have to double up as dressers.

The prevailing shortage of medics and medical staff has been affecting the services in several other departments including the Yuva Friendship Centre. On an average, between 40 and 50 patients are admitted in the Sadar Hospital. Medical services are provided through a three-shift routine that includes one solitary ANM for each shift as against a minimum requirement of two ANMs per shift.

Revisiting the security aspect where not a single security guard has ever been posted in the Saraikela Sadar Hospital through its 14 year of misery riddled trek. This vital absence has been felt by the Hospital’s medical team that has to face patients and their attendants’ ire. Vehicles parked outside the Hospital are not safe and this fact has been underlined by theft of vehicles at random.  Even costly medical equipments have been stolen. The security aspect is best defined as a blank canvas on the painter’s isle.

The Saraikela Sadar Hospital was launched with the view of better medical facilities with adequate doctors, nurses and other medical paraphernalia. But through 14 years of its launch, the hopes have been put on the backburner. Inaugurated by the then Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda, hopes of the suffering mankind of Saraikela-Kharsawan district rose like the winter sun only to be hidden by a thick cloud cover that neither rained nor made the prospects any brighter. Even God does not know if the condition of the Saraikela Sadar Hospital will ever emerge from the offensive stench of stagnant water covering the now-defunct hopes of a suffering and disappointed mankind of the district.