Staff crunch at S'ghatta hospital

Only three doctors and one staff nurse serving at the 100-bed healthcare facility

Only three doctors, one of them on deputation, is serving at this 100-bed hospital.The sanctioned strength for the hospital is five doctors. The shortage does not stop here. As against the required eight staff nurses, only one, that too on deputation, is on duty.

Services hit

The state-run hospital  lacks even a single nurse on permanent duty, nor are there any healthcare staff, the sine qua non for any hospital. It has become a mere building sans facilities. Obviously, the services are also badly hit causing hardship to publilc. The capacity of this public utility, which started functioning with 50 beds, was doubled in the year 2006. Except this ‘development,’ there has been measures on significant improvement in the ground reality.

The hospitals at Malur, Bagepalli and Gudibande taluk headquarters were also upgraded along with the one in Shidlaghatta. While the work on improving these three towns is in progress, similar work is yet to begin in Shidlaghatta hospital. In fact, the hospital should have been upgraded by this time as the native village of K H Muniyappa, who represented Kolar in the Parliament and now a Union minister is located in this taluk.

Moreover, V Muniyappa the former district in-charge minister also hails from this taluk.  Public feel that lack of political will is the root cause for the poor state of affairs in the hospital. The emergency treatment unit is yet to become functional.

Payment due

The ambulance provided to the hospital at a cost of Rs 38 lakh is bereft of a permanent roof and is being exposed to vagaries of nature. The shed constructed for the ambulance is not available for service as the payment is yet to be made to the contractor who carried out the work.

The taluk is inhabited by people majority of whom are depended on dairy farming and agriculture for their livelihood.

The public are fervently hoping the intervention of the Union minister and the local elected representative to restore a semblance of healthcare unit to this ‘ailing’ government hospital.