SHILLONG: The medical superintendent of NEIGRIHMS, Dr N Topno, has referred paediatric cases to Bethany Hospital, Nazareth Hospital, Ganesh Das Hospital and Children’s Hospital due to “acute shortage of manpower”.
Bethany, Nazareth and Children’s Hospitals have been asked to take care of patient needing neo-natal care while Ganesh Das Hospital has been asked to deal with paediatric cases requiring close monitoring.
All the hospitals have been asked not to refer any paediatric cases to NEIGRIHMS for a month with effect from January 1.
Also, endoscopy services by General Surgery Department have been temporarily suspended from January 20 to February 18 because “both endoscopists of the department will be on leave (vacation)”, said a letter dated January 14.
This has been the trend at NEIGRIHMS ever since doctors were told by the present director to avail their vacation during December-January or June-July. Doctors availing leave at the same time affect functioning of the institute but despite this repeated experience of acute shortage of manpower in the two seasons of the year there is no change in the rules as yet.
Several calls were made to the public relations officer of the hospital for confirmation but the phone was unreachable. When the director of NEIGRIHMS, Dr DM Thappa, was contacted, he wanted to know the source of the information and when it was not divulged, he did not respond.
