The surgeons of the associated hospital of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) here are forced to postpone operations due to limited number of beds in the surgical ward.
The occupancy of patients of other departments in the surgical ward is the reason behind the crisis. To make the things worse all the wards of the hospital are full to their capacity these days.
The surgical ward of the hospital has a capacity of 97 beds but due to various constraints all of them are not being utilised to accommodate the patients who need post operative care after surgery. Ten beds of this ward are reserved for the patients of swine flu and Dengue. To complicate things, the paediatric ward of the hospital is also closed owing to some repair work due to which the patients of this ward are also shifted to other wards of the hospital. Sixteen beds of the paediatric ward are shifted to surgery, eight to skin and eight to trauma wards. The paediatric ward of the hospital is undergoing some changes and similar is the fate of other parts of the hospital. The overall effect of these changes and adjustments is that there is little space left for surgery patients in the ward meant for them. It has also resulted in delay in operations of the patients. In such a situation, the surgeons are shifting the dates of the operation due to non availability of the space in the ward. Normally, a patient is kept for two to three days in the ward for post operative care after an operation and in case of the patients of remote areas the surgeons prefer to keep them for a week. It is worth mentioning here that 35-40 operations a week are done by the department of surgery of the hospital and there is a long waiting list of the patients for the surgery of different kinds. It is worth mentioning here that the associated hospital of GDMC is the biggest health facility in Government sector and large number of patients from different areas of the State arrive here for treatment. The hospital also caters a large patient load from the neighbouring States of Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
The Medical Superintendent (MS) of the hospital, Dr KK Tamta accepted that the problem is being faced due to the occupancy of the surgical ward. He however added that sixteen additional beds have been arranged for the patients of surgery. “These beds would be placed in the gallery and old emergency of the hospital. This measure would provide some immediate relief to the patients of surgery,” he said.