The medical health and family welfare department has deployed a radiologist in a hospital where in absence of patients his services are of little or no use.
The department has attached Dr SK Jha to Coronation Hospital for three days in a week but in absence of Physician and Gynaecologist in the hospital, he is doing less than 10 ultrasounds daily.
Interestingly, this mismanagement in deployment of radiologists is taking place when the Director General of State Health Services Dr GS Joshi happens to be a radiologist himself.
The radiologists are much in demand across the Government hospitals of the State as only 29 of them are serving in State Health Services.
The Doon Hospital which is the biggest Government hospital in the State is reeling under acute shortage of radiologists; the department had recently transferred both the radiologists deployed here.
The department later attached Dr Yatindra Singh from Base Hospital, Srinagar to Doon Hospital and deployed Dr SK Jha for three days in a week.
Dr Jha is rendering his services to Doon Hospital on Monday, Wednesday and Friday where 100-120 ultrasound cases are done daily.
He is relieved on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday as patient load in the Coronation Hospital, where he is attached for these three days, has drastically reduced in the recent days due to the absence of doctors.
One of the staff members of the Coronation Hospital said that majority of ultrasound cases are referred by the physicians and gynaecologists and in absence of these specialists the patients have almost stopped visiting the hospital.
He was of the opinion that since Dr Jha is doing only 10-12 ultrasounds a days at Coronation, his services would be better utilised elsewhere like Doon Hospital or Premnagar hospital.
When contacted the Director, Medical and Health, Dr lK Gusain said that the department would review the ultrasounds cases done in the Coronation Hospital.
“If it is found that less than 15 ultrasound cases a day are conducted on an average in the Coronation Hospital, the department would consider shifting the radiologist from there to a place where his services are used in a better way”, he said.
Dr Gusain also added that the department can deploy an ambulance to ferry the patients of Coronation hospital to Doon hospital in case the radiologist is shifted.