Bongaigaon Civil Hospital faces severe staff shortage, struggles to provide healthcare services

Bongaigaon, Feb 25: Bongaigaon Civil Hospital is currently struggling to provide proper healthcare services to patients due to a shortage of doctors and other important staff.

The posts of hospital superintendent, deputy super-intendent, additional chief medical officer, and chief medical and health officer (communicable diseases) have been lying vacant since many years in this 200-bed civil hospital. The hospital, which was built in 2011 at a cost of Rs 9.11 crore, is also functioning without a radiologist, pathologist, microbiologist, dermatologist, psychiatrist, forensic specialist, doctor of medicine, hospital administrator, and matron.

In fact, the hospital now requires three surgeons, an orthopaedist, a gynaecologist, two eye specialists, an ENT doctor, three women doctors, three pharmacists, four ward boys, six ward girls, four laboratory technicians, two radiographers, 20 staff nurses (GNM), two data entry operators, two office staff, and two Grade-IV workers to ensure normal functioning.

The hospital is somehow managing to provide healthcare services to the patients, who come from within and outside the district, with the help of only 18 doctors against the requirement of 32 doctors. Of these 18 doctors, five have been provided under the National Health Mission to support the institution.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Ashok Singhal had paid a sudden visit to the hospital on February 16 and inspected its infrastructure and facilities. However, he did not make any comment on the manpower crisis of the hospital while talking to the media.