​ Patients bear brunt of staff crunch at trauma centre of SN Med College

Agra: Patients visiting the trauma centre at the SN medical College said they were are often met with rude behavior or delay in service at the under-staffed department. They added that there was a chronic shortage of medicines and doctors at the hospital. Patients also alleged that they were made to wait in long queues to access ventilator services.
A man who had brought his son, an accident victim to the Trauma centre, said he had been asked by the hospital to buy medicines and injections from outside the hospital as the institute didn’t have them. Refusing to be named, he added that doctors kept putting off his son’s treatment. “I visited the staff regularly and got turned away several times.”
Another patient, who also refused to be named, said critically injured persons were hardly ever treated on a priority basis. On the issue, Trauma Centre in-charge Dr CP Pal said, “We try to do our best with the limited staff and resources that we have. We operate around five to seven patients at the OT of the trauma center daily. We try to manage 70 to 80 operations in a month.”
He admitted that crises arose at the hospital at times due to the shortage of doctors, nurses, lab technicians and other staff. “The beds at the centre should also be increased. We need around 25 to 30 beds to tackle exceptional situations. The principal has been informed about the situation.”
According to sources, the trauma center has seven beds and has four ventilators. It has around 14 outsourced staff. Apart from these, there are senior and resident doctors of the SN Medical College who visit the department visit daily.