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Hospital staff found snoozing, missing from duty, Chandigarh health secretary cracks whip
During his surprise visits to various government hospitals in Chandigarh, the health secretary found several employees missing, sleeping or gossiping
A sweeper was suspended and several staff members of various government hospitals in Chandigarh are facing one-day salary cut after they were found sleeping or missing from duty during a surprise inspection by UT health secretary Yashpal Garg on the intervening night between March 16 and 17.
During his visit to the civil hospital in Manimajra, the health secretary observed that the general ward on the first floor was locked from inside.
“The security guard was called, but even she could not open the door. Some patients and attendants, who were inside the ward, could not find the key for the lock. Later, a ward boy unlocked the door and the nursing officer was found sleeping inside the room. I was informed that the ward was locked after the doctor’s round around 10 pm to avoid any kind of theft,” Garg said.
“However, locking the ward from inside could have been disastrous in the event of any incident of fire, etc. The justification for locking the ward to avoid theft is not acceptable and seems to be a cover-up for the actual reason of having a good sleep after locking the room,” the secretary said, adding that an explanation has been sought from the senior medical officer (SMO) of the hospital in this matter.
A private ward was also found locked from inside. The nursing officer informed that it was being used for storage purposes, but after knocking for some time, the door was opened by a sweeper, who was napping inside.
“The sweeper has been suspended and the outsourced agency has been asked to substitute him, preferably from the outsourced staff who were deployed during the Covid wave but were subsequently disengaged,” Garg said.
The health secretary also asked the SMO to submit reasons for manual instead of computerised registration at the hospital and switch to the latter at the earliest.
On visiting the civil hospital in Sector 45, Garg found some nursing staff missing from duty areas and gossiping, while at the civil hospital in Sector 22, a sweeper was found sleeping inside the ECG room.
At GMSH, Sector 16, doctors and other staff were busy attending a little rush of patients around 1.30 am. “A female attendant of a pregnant patient complained that the doctor on duty at the Labour Room at the Sector 45 hospital didn’t have knowledge of C-Section delivery, so they were forced to travel to GMSH-16 amid labour pain,” Garg said.
On reaching GMCH, Sector 32, Garg found six security personnel gossiping while ignoring people entering the emergency wing. Similar observations were made during a night inspection on September 19, last year. Garg said the security in-charge himself was busy gossiping.
The next morning, an inspection was conducted at the Health and Wellness Centre in Sector 8, where the staff were found late for work.
Ordering disciplinary action against the duty violations, the secretary said one-day salary will be deducted with regard to those outsourced staff, who were found sleeping or missing from their duty points. Also, those who joined duty late will be regarded as absentees. Their performance will be closely monitored for next three months.
He also ordered that regular employees who were found sleeping or late be marked on casual leave. The deduction will be included in the service record of each staffer, Garg added.
