“After more than a year of pandemic and huge mortality rate in GMC&H Jammu, Financial Commissioner H&ME Department has now realized that senior doctors should be brought out of their protected coops”
Nitesh Sangral
‘APATHETIC’! What else could be better denotation of the ‘fragile’ work culture at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMC&H) Jammu, wherein junior doctors or to be precise interns have been thrown in the battle against Covid-19 pandemic, whereas learned and more skilled senior doctors have been kept in protected coops.
This was exposed by the recent order of the Financial Commissioner, Health and Medical Education (H&ME) Department-Atal Dulloo, wherein he directed the Principal of GMC&H to increase the presence of senior faculty members by making frequent rounds of Covid dedicated wards.
Talking to The Typewriter, a senior officer of Health Department, requesting anonymity said that after more than a year of pandemic and huge mortality rate in GMC&H Jammu, Financial Commissioner H&ME Department has now realized that senior doctors should be brought out of their protected coops.
“Following strong castigation of failing to control the mortality rate especially in Jammu province, the Financial Commissioner H&ME Department, after more than one year of pandemic and huge mortality, finally realized that there is need for reducing the same, which requires immediate corrective measures,” said senior officer, adding that it is mystery what stopped the Financial Commissioner to sound a bugle earlier, when the cases were on rise.
He also stated that the very purpose of appointing senior doctors as Nodal Officers for Covid wards is being also defeated.
“There are multiple problems that are faced by the Nodal Officers, making them somewhere reluctant to visit wards, because some of them belong to non-clinical background and are not experts of the concerned departments,” said officer, adding that even the in-charges of the respective Covid wards are finding themselves into mess.
He said that the in-charges of the Covid wards have to run pillar to post for the need of essential drugs and required items, in absence of immediate powers to the Nodal officer.
“It has been seen that the in-charges of the respective wards have to knock the chamber of the concerned authorities time and again to literally solicit for essential drugs of Covid patients, because their immediate Nodal Officers are powerless,” the officer said.
Making the presence of Nodal Officers inconsequential, in-charges of the Covid wards have been shooting direct letters to the Medical Superintendent of the hospital for requisition of essential items in the Covid wards.
In the letter written to the Medical Superintendent of Government and Hospital (Copy in possession of The Typewriter), an in-charge of Covid ward No 2 has sought essential items, including BiPAP Circuit, ECG Full Leads, SPO2 full leads and Sp cup full leads among other things.
Speaking on the issue, Dr Shabnam Choudhary, Professor Pharmacology, Nodal Officer of Ward No 2 claimed that the Nodal officers are working tirelessly during the War like situation.
“We are putting all our efforts for the service of the patients and ours is an important role to ensure that patients, as well as, staff of the allotted wards get all the required items or treatment on time,” Dr Choudhary stressed.
Meanwhile, keeping senior doctors at bay in the trying times has caused resentment among junior doctors, who termed the recent order of the Financial Commissioner, H&ME Department, as ‘constrained move’.
“We are providing every possible treatment to the patients as per our theoretical and some basic practical knowledge, but had our seniors were deployed in the wards with us, the results would have been encouraging,” said a junior doctor, wishing not to be named, adding that the order for the senior doctors has come, but the damage has already been done.
Junior doctors stated that the more time a senior doctor spends with junior doctors in the ward, the more skillful and technical doctors would be produced, but here the story is different.
“Let aside this pandemic, aren’t senior doctors, Principal GMC&H and Financial Commissioner H&ME accountable to the people in normal times,” asked the doctor, adding that why they have been kept inaccessible for the patients.
“We at GMC&H Jammu treat Covid patients like our family members and we are committed to serving our own people but unfortunately, we are feeling like an abandoned child with no value of lives,” a disappointed junior doctor lamented, hoped that budding and senior doctors will work together for the people in pandemic.
However, Principal GMC&H Jammu, Dr Shashi Sudhan Sharma, while speaking to the media denied the allegations that seniors were not available in the wards and claimed that all doctors were giving their best at this time of pandemic.
When The Typewriter tried to contact the Principal GMC&H, she was unavailable for comments till the publishing of this report, as she claimed to be busy in some meetings.
