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Union health secretary turns down PGI’s proposal for cap on patient load
The institute administration is now planning to take the agenda in the next governing body meeting, likely to be held towards the end of this year.
The Union health secretary, Preeti Sudan, has rejected the proposal by the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) regarding capping the number of patients examined at the hospital. The institute administration is now planning to take the agenda in the next governing body meeting, likely to be held towards the end of this year.
“One of the issues taken up at the meeting held three weeks ago with the health secretary in New Delhi was that the number of patients at the PGIMER had been increasing at a fast rate, whereas the staff and infrastructure were remaining the same,” said Dr Jagat Ram, director, PGIMER.
“The patient load was over 25.5 lakh in 2016, whereas it increased by around 1.3 lakh in 2017. With the hospital emergency and out-patient department (OPDs) bursting at the seams, we had asked the health secretary for a cap on the patient being examined at the PGIMER,” Dr Ram said.
“Although the meeting officers cited an example of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, where there is an option of referring back the patients, the health secretary was not convinced. She said the patients referred from the AIIMS can go to Safdarjung hospital, but patients referred from the PGIMER have nowhere to go to,” Dr Ram said.
The proposal had come amid a constant demand from some of the faculty members that there should be a cap on the patient load, and now the authorities are planning to take the issue as a separate agenda in front of the governing body of the PGIMER.
34% jump in patients in last 5 years
As per the hospital data, a total of 26.8 lakh patients visited the OPD of the PGIMER in 2017. The figure was 20 lakh in 2013, which is a jump of 33.79% over the five years.
Out of the which the 26.8 lakh patients last year, the highest number of patients - 9.9 lakh - were from Punjab, which is almost double that of the patients from Chandigarh and Haryana, which was 5.4 lakh and 5.1 lakh, respectively.
The fourth in line was the number of patients from Himachal Pradesh - 3.2 lakh - and other states including north-eastern states, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Jammu and Kashmir accounted for 3 lakh patients.
In the annual report 2016-17, PGIMER director has said the patient load over the years has been increasing exponentially and now it is becoming unimaginable.
From the annual number of 1.25 lakh outpatients and 3,328 admissions in 1963-64, the number of patients has gone up to 25.5 lakh outpatients and 89,584 admissions in 2016-17.
