Staff crunch at Bhadrachalam Area Hospital troubles patients

The Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam is grappling with a severe shortage of doctors and nursing staff, affecting healthcare services for tribal communities. CPI (M) has urged the Telangana government to fill vacancies and allocate funds to upgrade the facility.

Kothagudem: Government Area Hospital at Bhadrachalam is facing a severe shortage of doctors and nursing staff, causing untold hardships to patients.

The hospital, situated on the borders of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, is a crucial healthcare facility for tribal people living in the region. Nearly eighty per cent of the persons visiting the hospital are adivasis.

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The hospital won the Central government’s Kayakalp Award four times in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020-21 during the BRS regime, besides standing first among Area Hospitals in the State in terms of conducting the highest number of institutional deliveries.

But now, the hospital is allegedly being neglected by the Congress government as a large number of doctor and staff posts remain vacant. According to officials, as against a sanctioned strength of 62 doctors, only 22 doctors are currently working at the hospital. Specifically, while there should be 16 civil surgeons, only three are available.

Similarly, there should be 37 civil assistant surgeons, but only 23 are available, of whom 17 are contract doctors and six are regular staff. Six of them are currently on deputation. There is only one orthopaedic surgeon instead of two, only two paediatricians instead of four and only one ENT specialist instead of two.

There is a complete absence of doctors in several categories, including deputy civil surgeons, general surgeons, general medicine specialists, dermatologists and doctors for the Ayurveda and Homeopathy departments.

The same is the case with the nursing and paramedical staff. As against a requirement of 53 nursing personnel, only 28 are available, of whom 13 are regular staff and 15 are on deputation. As a result, the staff is under tremendous work pressure as they have to manage multiple wards.

The CPI (M) State secretary John Wesley, highlighting the sad state of affairs at the hospital, recently wrote a letter to Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy seeking immediate steps to address the staff crunch at the 200-bedded Area Hospital.

Alleging that Bhadrachalam ITDA funds are not being allocated to the hospital, he sought adequate funds to develop the Bhadrachalam Area Hospital into a super speciality hospital, keeping public health in mind, besides setting up an advanced trauma centre.