The doctors and other staff members of Doon Women Hospital here are so much traumatised by the recent incidents of altercation and commotion by the relatives of some patients inside the hospital that some of them are contemplating leaving their jobs unless security cover in the hospital is increased.
Two consecutive incidents of relatives of patients manhandling the hospital staff in the month of August have created a sort of fear psychosis among the hospital staff of the biggest women’s hospital of the state. It is learnt that Dr Tripti Bahuguna who was officiating as Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS) during these incidences has been under severe trauma since then and is on a leave.
To make matters worse for the hospital two of the doctors have resigned from the service and two more have informed the hospital authorities about their plans of leaving the service. It is worth mentioning here that soon after these incidences, the nursing and other staff of the hospital went on an impromptu strike but they were persuaded by the Director General (DG) health services Dr R P Bhatt to resume their duties after assurance of providing security and lodging cases against the offenders. The members of the hospital staff now rue that nothing has changed even after the assurance of DG and they are forced to work in an environment which is totally unsafe.
The hospital's CMS Dr Meenakshi Joshi confirmed that due to lack of security arrangements the staff is feeling insecure. She said that the hospital administration wants 11 more security guards as existing 07 are not enough for the task. Dr Joshi said that she has brought the matter before the higher authorities. “We are assured that the request of increasing the security staff is under consideration and a decision would soon be taken”, she said.
On Wednesday, the CMS raised the issue of security of staff members before the Chief Minister Harish Rawat and top officials of health department when the former visited the hospital for launching II phase of ‘Mission Indradhanush’. The hospital administration also requested that the number of beds in the hospital should be increased in view of huge patient flow and number of posts of doctors and other staff should be increased accordingly.