Tuesday, December 14, 2010

SMGS’s new pediatrics deptt yet to take off

SYED AMJAD SHAH

Jammu, June 21: The fate of new `highly equipped’ pediatric department of Shri Maharaja Gulab Singh (SMGS) Hospital Jammu is hanging in balance even after the new building constructed to establish the separate department stand completed in 2008.

If officials have to be believed the short of required manpower is the only hurdle for starting the department in newly constructed building. Hundreds of children are being treated per day at SMGS, the only hospital in Jammu to have full fledged pediatrics department.

“The new building stands completed in all respects but the department could not be shifted because of the lack of required staff,” official sources said adding that the new building has the capacity of nearly 200 beds besides separate OPD section and it is equipped with latest diagnostic equipments.

The equipments and other infrastructure at par with other sections of SMGS hospital available in the ward, is gathering dust”, because the hospital management is yet to arrange the skilled hands and doctors to make it functional, sources said.

“Some of the machines have rusted with the passage of time, since they are not in use and laying unattended in a careless manner,” sources alleged, adding that the hospital authorities are not much worried about the abandoned building, completed when Ghulam Nabi Azad was the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.

The department was contemplating to shift some of the paramedics and doctors from other departments before shifting the department, sources said adding, however the shortage of staff in other department is another problem confronting the hospital management.

The 550-bedded hospital, on an average, has 800 to 1,000 indoor patients on any given day. So far this year, it has witnessed 155 deaths of infants, neonates and children in the paediatrics department while three deaths of women have been reported in the gynaecology and obstetrics department.

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