VACANT POSTS: Out of 24 doctors posts, 15 lying vacant

Ferozepur, January 10, 2013:  About a year back, the maternity and child health block (MCH) constructed in Civil Hospital, Ferozepur campus, at the cost of over Rs.2 crore, is without any maternity and child specialists.  The complex was inaugurated by Chief Minister, Parkash Singh Badal on August 14, 2010. These posts are lying vacant for the past several months, which have created a great inconvenience to the patients as in the absence of specialist in the civil hospital; they have no option except to visit the private doctor, beyond the reach of poor persons.  

On visit to the hospital, it was revealed that the condition of newly constructed building is poor and at certain places the plaster is falling just with the touch of a finger besides poor sanitation.

However, the Ferozepur Deputy Commissioner Manjit Singh Narang, who has recently joined here, paid a surprise visit to the hospital to inspect the facilities being extended to the people at OPD and in-door patients.  He advised the doctors and the staff in the hospital to work with missionary spirit and keep a special check on the cleanliness and other arrangements in the hospital. 

While talking to Inder Singh Gogia, president, NGOs Coordination Committee, Ferozpeur Unit, he said, mere surprise checking of hospitals would not suffice but posting of required number of doctors and providing the medical equipments.

On this occasion, Dr. Pardeep Aggarwal, Civil Surgeon, Dr. Y. K. Gupta, DHO, Dr. Ashutosh Talwar, Dr. Kamal Arora and others apprised the Deputy Commissioner about the problems being faced by them.  They informed that out of the total sanctioned posts of 22 doctors, 15 posts are lying vacant for the last several months, in addition to 64 staff nurses and 10 nursing sisters, which has badly affected the health services besides non-available of infra-structure.  They however, requested the deputy commissioner, to make arrangements to remain open the medicine shop (Jan-Aushidi) inside the hospital complex on 24x7 basis, so that in emergency cases, the patients and doctors may not face any difficulty.

The Civil Surgeon informed that the work related to issuance of medico-legal reports (MLR), allocation of patients to various specialists, conducting post-mortem and manning the trauma ward to deal with the emergency cases is also suffering due to which the poor patients have to bear the brunt.

Deputy Commissioner, however, assured the staff to write to the Punjab Government to provide the sufficient staff for the convenience of the public.