The General Medical College and Hospital, in Sector 32 is ailing under severe staff crunch. There are 45 vacant posts which have got approval by the Ministry of Health to be filled but currently these posts are vacant.

There are four departments where there are no doctors to tend to the patients. On the other hand, the departments which have less number of doctors are struggling with over-work. Due to overload of patients, doctors are not able to impart adequate attention to the patients as a result of which the patients are on the receiving end ailing for appropriate medical attention.

The patients who visit the departments which have a shortage of staff are imparted primary medical care and then their case is being referred to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research. The PGI, which is basically a research institute, is already overloaded and hence the patients face a lot of inconvenience during the course of treatment.

The UT Health department has been struggling constantly to curb this problem but till date there has been no recruitment to fill up the sanctioned vacant posts. The patients, visiting the cardiology department, are facing their worst nightmare in GMCH. There are doctors, from the medicine department, to provide basic treatment but the patients are not satisfied with such treatment in absence of a cardiologist. There have been cases when the conditions of patients have deteriorated and in absence of a specialist, they were referred to other hospitals.

Meanwhile, a cath lab is being setup here and permission has been granted to appoint Dr S Reddy of PGI as the head of department, but it has been known through sources that Dr Reddy will take the charge officially only when the lab is complete, which might take another six months to be functional, at the current rate of work being put up to finish it.

Dr Atul Sachdeva, Director GMCH-32 said, “The departments where there are no doctors are being run by doctors appointed under contract. We have received the permission to fill up many vacant posts and once the code of conduct is lifted, the appointments will be done.”