Creation of posts will be top agenda at SFC meeting of PGIMER today

A number of projects related to the development and the working of the institute, including updating the hospital information system are also some of the many agenda items that will be part of the meeting.

The OPDs at PGI are now seeing more than 10,000 patients a day, with the footfall back to the pre-Covid days. Surgeries and hospital admissions have also seen an increase, with more than 80,000 patients admitted to the institute in 2021-2022 and 58,000 elective and emergency surgeries performed in this period. With the OPD numbers increasing every year, there has been a demand for more nursing staff at the PGI, which has been struggling with staff shortage for many years now.

In 2016, PGI created posts for 1,500 new nursing staff, but no recruitment has been done to date. “Yes, we have been pushing to get this proposal cleared for several years now and we hope in the next few months, recruitment of 1,500 new nursing staff will be done, as some objections that the Finance Committee had regarding the filling up of these posts have now been answered. With the Mother and Child block and Neurosciences Centre coming up on campus, there is an urgent need for more nursing staff, and we are hopeful that the recruitments will be finalised without further delays,” said Dhawan.

According to Manjeek Kaur, president of PGI Nursing Association, at present, there are 1,900 nursing staff at the institute and the association hopes that the proposal for 1,500 new staff would be cleared soon, so that the burden on the nursing staff at the institute would be reduced.