No doctor for over 100 surgery patients in civic-run YCM hospital

The situation has persisted for nearly three weeks. The PCMC too is worried as to how to convince resident doctors to take up the job at its 750-bed hospital, where patients from not only Pimpri-Chinchwad, but also from Pune city, Khadki, Talegaon, Lonavla, Maval, Mulshi, Chakan, Khed, Junnar and several other close and far-off places make a beeline for treatment, which is much cheaper than private hospitals in Pune district.

YCMH hospital needs 12 resident doctors to take care of 100-150 patients every day. However, currently, it has none as all of them have quit the temporary PCMC services. “We are not able to get residents doctors after the last one left three weeks ago,” said Dr Manoj Deshmukh. “Since no resident doctor is available, we have no doctor to look after the surgery patient in at least three wards during evening hours and night time. The nurses in the respective wards are taking care of the surgery patients,” Dr Deshmukh said.

The nurses apparently take instructions on phone from surgeons who are available only from morning to afternoon hours.

According to Dr Deshmukh, no “untoward incident” has happened in past three weeks, but emergency surgeries have taken a beating. “Emergency surgeries are being performed but the rate is very slow,” he said.

When Newsline sought to know the reasons from Municipal Commissioner Rajeev Jadhav, he said, “It is true we do not have resident doctors at YCM hospital. This is because resident doctors are offered better salaries by private hospitals and therefore they are not ready to take up the job with us as we pay by government norms,” he said.

Jadhav said though PCMC was making all efforts to rope in residents doctors, they have failed so far. Civic officials said residents doctors at YCM hospital are paid Rs 50-60,000 every month, but they get much more in private hospital.

Echoing the commissioner’s views, NCP House leader in PCMC, Mangala Kadam, said,”We are aware of the urgency of the situation. We are conducting walk-in interview every Monday… we need only MBBS doctors, but are finding it difficult to get them,” she said.

For the past two-three years, the hospital has also been facing a major shortage of senior doctors after several of them retired or left the civic services.

Retired YCMH superintendent Dr Anand Jagdale, who is credited with handling the the hospital administration with aplomb, said, “During my tenure, we too faced problems of shortage of doctors. But due to our wide contacts with other hospitals in Pune and other cities, we were able to get any number of doctors. So the problem used to get resolved. These days, YCM hospital continues to be in the news for all the wrong reasons. The PCMC chief should take tough decisions or else it will be patients who will be sufferers,” he said.