"In munafiqoon aur marwanoon ki aap sunte ho"
KO: Another allegation is that the nursing care in the hospital iscompletely missing. While a few junior nurses are visible during day, they disappear like deer in the woods by the fall of the night, leaving the patients to fend for themselves. The senior nursing staff are alleged to be an arrogant lot who dictate terms to their juniors, leaving the patientsat the receiving end. How would you set the order right?
Prof Jalal: We want it to be a shift system. Certain vested interests did not allow us or facilitate that. We wanted to put on shifts not merely nursing, butsecurity, medical and para-medical staff too. The nursing staff after 5 p.m are less in number except in critical areas such as surgical ICU, post operative, intensive care units or neuro-surgery. Other than that there isa less number of sisters because of migration, some are supposed to be on casual leave, some on maternity leave and this adjustment has to be done out of 300 or 400 sisters.You see, how many can go suddenly on casual leave, how many on earned leave because of the problems,... howmany are there on maternity leave. therefore, working force is less than 320 or 300 and that has to be distributed in 40 . the institute hasexpanded. When the institute started, it had no emergency. Emergency was only for 5 beds. Today the institute has observation and ward 2A emergency beds. It has expanded to cathlab; it has intensive care unit there; post operative work has increased. Whereas 15 surgeries were being carried out, now it is 45, in case there is no emergency. Therefore, the demand has increased. Under this demand, there is a shortage ofnursing staff. As we are having the faculty interviews next week and direct recruitment. Similarly, we are going to request the government to allow us to fill up those vacancies which are vacant for many reasons. People have retired, died or migrated. Under these circumstances, the growing demand is there. There used to be hardly one patient for dialysis; today we get 10 per day, without emergency, being dialysed. This is not with SKIMS alone. You go to PGI, you go to any other hospital..you go to Jammu medical college. Yes it is supposed to be a tertiary care that iswhy there are interviews and appointments every year.
KO: Those critically injured in accidents are left unattended in the emergency for hours resulting in the delay of the much needed medical attention. Consequently, people have succumbed to their injuries. Thereseems to be no facility for such contingencies, isn't it so?
Prof. Jalal: ... Absolutely wrong. These are allegations. Clearly sir, if you do not get annoyed, each and every word has been fed to you by a few faculty members who are deadly against the institute for their vested interests. Road accidents every day, bullet injuries every day, blast injuries - wherefrom are they getting treatment, Sir.
KO: It's also alleged that patients in the hospital are treated as guinea pigs who're subjected to all manner of unnecessary tests and investigations, even forced to undergo critical procedures such asangiographies unnecessarily. What's this happening?
Prof. Jalal: Allegations, only allegations, shame .. Why should one do it. Has he (doctor) not taken the oath? Haven't you seen patients undergoing investigations? If you say about a private hospital . . I may, plus-minus, doubt because they have to earn the money and run the hospital. Whyshould my faculty or a professor put a patient to unease. They are accountable before God and before their conscience. How many time Prof ... I have a case of a private hospital where a kidney was implanted which was removed because it had died out of necrosis. You will not project that thing.
KO: You're blamed of having spent lakhs of rupees on roof-topping tostop the leakage. What I've seen is that the problem continues as such. In ward blocks, for instance, the patients are exposed to fungal and other microbial infection due to leakage in bathrooms.Why hadn't the problem been identified in the first place?
Prof. Jalal: Ask your ... who is very close to you, it seems...who has fed you with the information. Ask . why he has not done it... It is taking me Rs. 2 crore to replace the heating system. Here is the great example of the paying ward. Put a commission who's involved. Nobody has taken it over. Who isinvolved in the construction of that? Who have designed and who have constructed that? Because you will not talk, every thorn is with Dr. Jalal. Ab mujhe pata chala, you too are the same flock.
KO: The attendants blame that the institute has turned into a concrete jungle. Don't you think people have to suffer with drop gates and doorscoming up at various places? Don't you think that charging attendantsRs. 5.00 as entry fee is too much for a poor person? No facilities such as lifts are in place for them. What do you say to that?
Prof. Jalal: This is what junior residents who had gone on a strike for thispurpose feel. Now I say categorically who has fed you this information. Go to AIIMS, you have to get a token to enter and when you leave from another gate, you have to return that token. Drop gates are there too. What a shame? The aim of the people seems to bring this hospital down to the level of Lalded hospital, which is a shame, a slur on the part of Kashmir. The premises of the hospital were used by vagabonds who were indulging in all manner of illegal activities such as gambling, charas-smoking, drugs, setting off fire-crackers, even for sexual acts. Would I have let that continue? Regarding payments, it is not the attendants but other visitors who are charged and they have to be. Thisis not a picnic spot and this thing is done to discourage people from entering the hospital in flocks. They are not hungry people. They cannot have dinner in the hospital. We are using that money for keeping the hospital clean and you can see the walls are reflecting like mirrors. Regarding lifts, one lift costs Rs 40 lakh. This time we are replacing two lifts and repairing four others. Ask my predecessors about the money which they had received.
KO: What are your future programs in terms of expansion?
Prof. Jalal: I'm literally begging before the central government for money for the expansion of the OPD, for the expansion of the maternity hospital and the regional cancer centre, which would be first of it kind in Kashmir.
KO: Thank you very much sir, you have been very forthright in answers.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment