Title - Rush of patients in understaffed railway hospital at Danapur - The Times of India

PATNA: Catering to about 14,000 railway employees as well as 6,000 pensioners of Danapur division alone, the Danapur railway hospital is understaffed with no regular chief medical superintendent (CMS). Sometimes, there is also short supply of medicines to the hospital, causing hardships to the patients as well as the doctors attending on them.

The hospital has the strength of 16 doctors of which the posts of the CMS and two other doctors are lying vacant.

According to the hospital's acting CMS, Dr A K Singh, earlier the hospital had 202 beds. But it was reduced to 160 beds in 2011 after the railway super speciality hospital, Patna, became operational. "There is a daily rush of patients. While the bed occupancy rate is about 60 to 70% now, about 500 to 600 patients turn up daily at the outpatient department (OPD) for treatment," Dr Singh said.

Dr Singh said all kinds of surgery are performed in the hospital. Two doctors visit the hospital on contract basis to assist the railway surgeon in emergency. The hospital has only one ambulance and it urgently needs one more. The pathology department, which does routine tests only, also needs sophisticated equipment. About 7,000 pathological tests are done every month, he said.

Dr Singh said the hospital faces problems when the medicines are not supplied on time. "The hospital was being supplied medicines worth Rs 95 lakh from the office of the chief medical director (CMD), ECR, till 2011 when the supply was reduced to medicines worth Rs 45 lakh. However, the ECR headquarters has now increased the supply of medicines to worth Rs 86 lakh per year," he said adding the hospital could purchase medicines worth Rs 12 lakh per year from open market in case of emergency.

According to a senior divisional medical officer of the hospital, it gets bulk medicines supply from the ECR's CMD office annually. But the hospital gets only about 40% of medicines at the start of a financial year and the rest is supplied towards the end of the financial year. The delay in medicines supply from the CMD office often forces the hospital authority to purchase medicines from open market, he said.