Shortage of faculty in the Radiodiagnosis department at Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram is beginning to affect patient care, it is feared.
Since the past several years, shortage of faculty has been plaguing the department, with not enough doctors to teach PG students or to cater to the huge influx of patients. However, the problem has gone from bad to worse in the last three years, with at least 25% increase in daily cases during this time
In 2018, if the department had a total of 39 faculty members, including 18 doctors with MD Radiodiagnosis qualification, and 21 junior residents, the total number of faculty has come down to 29 now, with 14 MD doctors and 15 junior residents. This is at a time when the department requires at least 55 doctors to handle the workload.
Though the MCH authorities and the government had been appraised several times of the crisis that was brewing in the RD department because of the shortage of faculty, nothing was done . The RD department was kept running till now only because of the additional efforts of the doctors here, who took double duties, avoided taking leave and spent their private time writing CT/MRI scan reports of patients
Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association, which has come out strongly in support of their colleagues in the RD department, pointed out that the faculty shortage was an issue of the Government’s own making.
It has pointed out that instead of creating faculty posts in the new Medical Colleges in the State (Konni, Idukki, Kollam, Wayanad and Kasaragod), the Government has been re-deploying faculty from older Medical Colleges to fill the vacancies in the former.
Also, junior faculty has been leaving all Medical Colleges in droves because of a salary cut and because of delayed promotions.
“Many of our colleagues are under tremendous stress, physically and mentally and it has begun to take a toll on their family life. Many are contemplating leaving their career in Medical Education because they feel that it’s not rewarding enough while draining their health and spirits,” KGMCTA leaders say
“The Interventional Radiology department here had two doctors who were DM-qualified, with sufficient experience and who were running the unit in an excellent manner since 2019. Last year, the administration began pulling them into the general pool for emergency duty in Casualty. Casualty duty can be heavy and they were forced to take night off the next day. But several life-saving procedures can only be performed by two of these specialist doctors together. Fed up, one of the doctors quit recently to join the private sector and the department is now hobbling along with just one faculty,” according to sources at MCH.
The IR department set up with specialised equipment worth crores could go into disuse and patients left to fend for themselves if the government does nothing to look at the crisis brewing at MCH
KGMCTA has now written to the government that unless something is done urgently to resolve faculty shortage in the RD department, the crisis could lead to patient care taking a bad hit and more faculty choosing to quit service altogether.
