Goyal makes rounds of Ganesh Das Hospital
SHILLONG: After the formal function to observe World Population Day, Deputy Commissioner, East Khasi Hills Sanjay Goyal also visited the different wards in Ganesh Das Hospital. While appreciating the excellent service rendered by the doctors and nursing staff of Ganesh Das who worked under very trying circumstances, Goyal expressed the need for a state of the art hospital for mother and child care in Meghalaya. “Some states like Bhopal have an excellent world class facility for mother and child care. Our state too needs to come up with similar facilities in the New Shillong Township since the facilities at Ganesh Das are over-stressed and the hospital is overcrowded,” Goyal remarked.
A doctor (gynaecologist) speaking on condition of anonymity said, “Ganesh Das is a baby producing factory. We help deliver 40 babies on a daily basis and about 10 Caesarean sections. Most of the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) send their patients to us at Ganesh Das on the pretext that the delivery could be complicated and that there are no equipments in the PHCs,” the doctor said adding that since patients coming to Ganesh Das Hospital cannot be sent home, this being a Govt hospital, some of them sleep on the floor as well.
A visit to the special nursery section where premature and under-nourished babies are kept under special care, revealed that the rooms were crammed and three babies were made to sleep together next to each other with hardly any breathing space. However the care and affection with which the nurses looked after them was exemplary. The Labour Room of GDH leaves much to be desired. A building coming up adjacent to the old building where the maternity ward is housed is taking its own time to complete.
Clearly Health is not a priority for Meghalaya and supervision of the PHCs to mark the attendance of doctors not a matter of concern to anyone but the poor patients who see the doctor’s face only once a week. Responding to this, DHS, Dr Sawian said, “We cannot expect the doctors to be in attendance 24×7 because they are paid to work from 10am – 5pm. Doctors don’t get non-practising allowance and are not incentivised to serve in rural areas so it is difficult to keep them away from private practice.”
From the informal conversation between the Deputy Commissioner and the doctors present at the function it appears that motivation is sorely lacking. While some doctors are self-starters and render their services despite all constraints there are others who view the profession purely as work rendered for a salary.
The counsellor informed that in a month she gets about 60 clients most of them unwed mothers with the problem of teenage pregnancy.
“Condom use for safe sex is also not a priority in Meghalaya since schools and colleges do not address this issue,” said some of the doctors.