With ventilators now available to hospitals, dearth of technicians a pressing issue
NEW DELHI: To give a lifeline to public hospitals, the Delhi government on Friday threw open 125 ventilators, which are designated to be used in Lok Nayak Hospital, GB Pant Hospital, Deen Dayal Upadhyay and other major state-run hospitals.
Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital has 35 ventilators, while Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital has 10.
Other state government hospitals with additional ventilators include G B Pant Hospital (10), Guru Gobind Singh Government Hospital (5), Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital (20), Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital (18), Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital (3) and Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital (4)
However, posing a challenge to the efforts of the government to provide quality healthcare is the fact that these hospitals have an acute shortage of technicians to operate these machines.
A superannuated technician Pramila Sanger, who was under treatment at Lok Nayak Hospital, died recently because the hospital administration was unable to provide her ventilator support.
Now that these hospitals have received the ventilators, whether they will be able to save lives by recruiting technicians or not needs to be seen.
“Several times these hospitals have received sophisticated machines and other equipment. However, many of them lie defunct in various wards due to the shortage of technicians. The condition is so miserable that many of them have already been reduced to trash,” said a source.
According to an official of one of the hospitals, around 300 laboratory technicians’ posts are lying vacant in various hospitals in the national Capital for the last three years.”
“Filling these vacancies of lab technicians in the hospitals is necessary, as staff shortage delays various important tests and treatments during urgent situations leading, at times, to the death of patients,” he added.
“The posts that need to be filled up are 170 technical supervisors, 63 lab technicians, 36 technical assistants and 36 lab assistants,” added the official, on condition of anonymity.
An operation theatre technician claimed that hospitals administrations have not taken proactive measures to fill up these vacancies.
Raguvinder Singh Nikki, general secretary of the Maulana Azad Medical College Employees Association, said that some hospitals have also delayed the departmental promotions of the existing staff.
“Only when the existing staff is promoted to a higher post can the new staff be recruited. The promotions have been delayed for the past nine years,” Nikki said.
Another technician said that there are days when they are made to do double shift or even called from home as there is heavy rush.
“We are helpless as we have limited manpower. We have time and again brought the matter to the notice of the senior authorities, but to no avail,” he added.
A senior doctor from the hospital, on the condition of anonymity, said: “Some of the ventilators and suction machines in the medicine emergency department have not been working for months due to shortage of technicians.”
To give a lifeline to public hospitals, the Delhi government on Friday threw open 125 ventilators