Critical care block inaugurated at Niloufer Hospital sans staff

Only 66 nurses for the 1,000-bedded facility

More facilities:The new critical care block at Niloufer Hospital.— Photo: G. Ramakrishna

After a delay of over three years, the government finally inaugurated Niloufer Hospital’s critical care block on Monday. The protracted timeline, however, has not accounted for the acute shortage of nursing staff the hospital is facing.

Hospitals across the State are facing shortage of nursing staff, for which recruitment has been due for more than five years, claim affiliates of Telangana government hospital nurses. Repeated representations made to successive government to provide minimum required nurses as per Indian Nursing Council norms have fallen on deaf ears, they claim.

Situation worsened

The situation in Niloufer Hospital has only worsened after inauguration of the new block. “There are 66 nurses at the hospital, which until recently was a 500-bedded facility. Now, however, it is a 1,000-bedded facility after inauguration of the critical care block,” said a nursing staff at the hospital.

Work on the critical care unit, inaugurated by Health Minister C. Laxma Reddy on Monday, started in 2009. It was only this year that pending works were taken up. With medical equipment worth Rs. 15 crore, the block is expected to commence operations with paediatric surgeries this week. It boasts of the country’s largest milk bank in terms of space, which aims to start with collection and storing of six litres of breast milk a day.

During the inauguration, Dr. Reddy said the hospital would greatly help boost the image of public healthcare institutions, but did not detail plans for addressing staff shortage. He briefly said staff numbers would be increased in the next few months.

“Our requirement has now increased to about 600 nurses along with reserve. With less than a tenth of the staff, we have to shuttle between three buildings crossing a road with heavy traffic flow,” the nursing staff said.

INC norms recommends around 200 nurses without reserves per shift for a 500-bedded teaching facility. According to Telangana Government Nurses Association, these norms stand unfulfilled in all of the State’s government hospitals.

Incidentally, it was the promise of providing more staff and meeting norms made by the Minister on Monday that prompted nursing staff at Osmania General Hospital to call off their week-long strike that crippled patient all through last weekend. Dr. Reddy assured the protesting nurses that recruitment process was under way to increase the sanction staff strength, while speedy recruitment would be done to fulfil the existing 60 vacancies at OGH.