‘We are planning to hire more doctors’

Principal health secretary says he is not aware of several problems Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital faces, promises to act on the information, reports HT Correspondent.

Why doesn’t the hospital fix defunct machines instead of forcing patients to get tests done in private labs?

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In a government set-up, everything has to be made available free of cost. Most people who come to government hospitals can’t afford private treatment. It’s not a correct thing to make them purchase medicines or get tests done from outside the hospital. The medical superintendent (MS) should ensure everything should be made available in-house.

Any plans to deal with staff shortage?

We’re planning to hire more doctors, paramedics and other staff to lower the doctor-patient ratio. The problem is the number of people visiting the hospital increases each day — more so because it caters to patients from Ghaziabad and other western Uttar Pradesh districts, but the facilities have remained the same.

Why is there no separate entry and exit points in the H1N1 screening room?

It must be done. We can’t take the risk of intermingling H1N1 suspects with the rest of the crowd in our hospitals. All the medical superintendents were asked to ensure this problem is taken care of. If they haven’t, then we’ll ensure it’s done. These things haven’t been brought to our notice before. Now that you are saying it, we’ll ensure things are sorted. The current MS has taken charge very recently; we should give him some time to improve things.