Vijayawada: Understaff at trauma care centres is leading to commotion at the General hospitals in the State. The last minute arrivals of patients with critical condition, at the hospitals are forcing the doctors to land in trouble. Many times doctors are becoming scapegoats. Despite repeated appeals, their issues were not addressed. The Vijayawada GGH trauma care currently has only 7 Causality Medical officers (CMOs) out of 10 sanctioned positions, and all of them are contract employees who are made to work with no offs and rest and irregular pay to the contract doctors is a routine in this hospital and for the first time in the country like farmers, doctors working in the state are pushed into debts.

In the third week of July, an incident of negligence in attending a burns case was and registered and an inquiry was ordered into the incident and memo’s are served to all the CMO’s and the departments concerned. Trauma care unit is being used as causality and the trauma care employees and doctors are entrusted the responsibility of causality work. They even have to attend regular out-patients (OP) also like severe fevers.

Speaking on the severity of problems faced by trauma care doctors and other staff, the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) Doctors cell co-convener Dr Ambati Naga Radhakrishna said that the GGH is under staff and only 60 percent or less are currently working in the hospital. “In the resent past a trauma care employee attempted suicide in East Godavari district, for not getting salary in time ,” Dr A.N. Radhakrishna observed, and added that Vijayawada GGH is understaffed in all the categories, say from specialists, duty doctors, attenders, sanitation workers, ambulance drivers and ambulances.

“This scenario is because of the irregular pay to the contract doctors and staff, and for the first time in the country, doctors working in the state are pushed into debts,” a doctor working in trauma care said.