Visakhapatnam: Acute shortage of anaesthesiologists is causing delay of major surgeries in government hospitals in the district.
As an anaesthesiologist at Narsipatnam Government Hospital was on leave, Caesarean surgeries on six pregnant women were postponed on Monday.
Narsipatnam MLA Petla Uma Sankara Ganesh expressed his anger over the issue and directed immediate action.
According to district coordinator of hospital services B.K. Nayak, Narsipatnam Government Hospital is a 150-bed hospital with all modern facilities. A number of patients come here for treatment and surgeries. It has a requirement of 7-8 anaesthesiologists, but only one is on the job. The situation in other government health centres is similar.
Dr K. Satyanarayana, head of the anaesthesia department at KGH, says the government hospital has three units of anaesthesia, with a professor and two assistant professors each. It needs another three units to serve the patients.
A couple of months ago, KGH doctors had given a representation to K. Sujatha Rao, chairperson of an eight-member expert committee on health reforms in the state. However, there was no response from the state government so far.
K. Satya Varaprasad, director of Visakhapatnam Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), also informed about the shortage of anaesthesiologists in the hospital. It has only two specialists in anaesthesia department, while the requirement is for over 30.
“Unfortunately, there has been no recruitment of anaesthesiologists in the government hospitals from past few years. One specialist cannot cover all the health centres. Many outstation patients come to Vizag for surgeries. There is a huge demand for critical care,” he said.
