Major reshuffle in Delhi govt hospitals

In a major rejig involving 86 doctors, the Delhi government on Friday shuffled officials in its Health Department and replaced heads at many hospitals.

Hospitals will now have three to five medical superintendents instead of one.This comes after the Aam Aadmi Party government reviewed the performance of each hospital, said Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain. Some doctors were unhappy with the new system. While several doctors felt multiple administrative heads will affect clinical work, others felt junior doctors have replaced more deserving senior doctors as medical superintendents.

Separate medical superintendents will take over departments like Maternity and Child Healthcare, Accident and Emergency Services, Surgical and Allied, Neurosciences, Cardiac Sciences, Gastro Sciences and Diabetology.

While the bigger hospitals will have the new post of ‘medical director’, who will have additional responsibilities of managing the finances, ‘coordinating medical superintendents’ — another new post — will handle finances in the smaller hospitals.  There are around 35 hospitals under Delhi government.

“The aim is to decentralise hospital administration so that services are run smoothly. In the last one year, we have reviewed hospital performances. It was found that while some hospital departments were stretched beyond capacity, some other departments were underutilised. Special attention is being given to maternity healthcare and emergency services,” said Jain at a press conference.

Among the bigger hospitals, Lok Nayak Hospital will have one medical director and five medical superintendents. Dr Y K Sarin, medical superintendent at LNJP, has been given charge of an advanced paediatric centre. Dr D K Tempe has been appointed medical director at LNJP and dean of Maulana Azad Medical College.

Dr Sunil Kumar will now be the medical director of GTB Hospital with 5 medical superintendents for different departments. Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital will have 3 medical superintendents with Dr Savita Babbar as the medical director.

The Health Minister said the new system will help streamline the administration. “Once the individual medical superintendents assume charge, there will be more accountability.” He added it would be easier to track the work in each hospital.

“Currently, doctors are burdened with administrative duties. We are planning to take them off these duties so that they can focus on clinical work. We are planning to employ professionals and have put them in some hospitals on trial basis,” said Jain.