The Public Estimates Committee has found glaring deficiencies in the functioning of Indira Gandhi Government General Hospital and Postgraduate Institute.
The committee during an inspection on Tuesday found the hospital lacking in specialist doctors, bed capacity, medicines and new machineries.
The Chairman of the committee, A. Anbalagan, told reporters that the hospital functioned without cardiovascular surgeons. Cardiac surgeries are performed by outsourced doctors from Chennai.
Lack of availability of specialist doctors puts patients who have undergone various procedures in difficulty. The government should appoint cardiovascular surgeons, he said. The hospital also functioned without adequate beds. Patients are compelled to sleep on the floor and sometimes two patients are made to lie on a bed for IV procedures, he said.
In the absence of MRI machine, patients are either sent to private labs or the Government Medical College.
Some patients have also complained about non-availability of essential medicines, he added.
The surgery equipment were found to be old and doctors have admitted on the need to replace the machinery for patients’ safety, he said.
Lack of ventilators
The hospital also lacked adequate ventilators. When the requirement for ventilators was around 30, the hospital has only 13 life supporting machinery. There was also urgent need to fill Group-D posts in the hospital, he said.
Other legislators who were part of the inspection team was DMK legislators R. Siva, Geetha Anandan and Congress member T. Djeamourthy.
