RTC hospital short of doctors, patients left in lurch

Hyderabad: The Road Transport Corporation (RTC) hospital in Tarnaka is facing a severe shortage of doctors, staff nurses and lab technicians, at a time when hundreds of employees and members of their families across the state are lining up at the hospital, reportedly with viral fevers and other health ailments.

On a daily basis, the hospital is seeing about 1,500 to 2,000 patients, but specialist doctors are available only from 8.30 am to 2.30 pm. General doctors are handling about 100 to 120 patients per doctor during their shifts, hospital sources said. There is only one duty doctor available after 2.30 pm, said sources in the RTC hospital.

The increased burden is not allowing doctors to carry out further medical investigations, due to which quality of diagnosis is not up to the mark, doctors said.

Chances of missing the cases of dengue are very high in such a situation, as clinical diagnosis is not proper. With increased viral fevers raging across the city and state, RTC hospital is also receiving about 18 to 20 cases of dengue cases alone, and 8 to 10 cases of other fevers like typhoid and malaria, each day.
Adding to the woes of viral fevers, the patients who are short on blood platelets are being referred to outside hospitals.

But other hospitals are refusing to admit patients from the RTC hospital as pending bills weren’t cleared. Some hospitals also refuse these patients saying that are no vacant beds.

During the state bifurcation, resources to Telangana and A’P were distributed in the ratio of 48:52, which led to reduction in number of doctors at the hospital to 23.

The influx of patients has gone up but there has been no recruitment of staff in last six years. Due to staff shortage, each nurse is looking after two wards during the night shift, said Shankar Kumar, representative, Tarnaka RTC hospital employees union.