All is not well with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, with the Resident Doctors’ Association (RDA) here appealing to the administration to urgently tackle the acute staff shortage in the emergency department.
RDA members said doctors have been “pushed into pathetic working conditions for the past last three months as there are just seven senior resident doctors against 20 posts. Of these , one will finish his tenure on July 31 ”.
They said the doctors are overburdened and under severe psychological stress due to the constant fear of “something going wrong for the patients or negligence”.
RDA president Vijay Gurjar said: “Doctors have been continuously raising this issue and we hope that a permanent solution will be arrived at. The authorities have told us to handle the situation till the joining of new senior residents after 10 August.’’
He said the six senior residents were thinking of resigning “as that would be better than to get suspended in case of negligence even if you are not negligent and not at fault as its impossible to see 150-200 patients in each shift of emergency duty.’’
The doctors said the conditions at the emergency surgery section were even worse with just two senior residents. As it is impossible for them to be present be in each shift for 24 hours, surgical emergency is left with non-academic junior residents.
AIIMS spokesperson Amit Gupta said like in the case of other departments, the emergency department posts have also been advertised. However,“we have to get enough applicant to be able to fill up the posts. This situation isn’t new. The hospital administration also ensures that in case of any contingency (like dengue outbreak, etc.,), staff is immediately brought in to help the situation.’’
