<p>A 100-bedded dedicated Covid-19 hospital on Broadway Road in Shivajinagar was inaugurated with much pomp in the last week of August by Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar and BBMP authorities, as having been readied in four months with sponsorship from Infosys Foundation. But there's no one to man this hospital as the government has received no response to ads put out way back in July for doctors and specialists. In the absence of fresh recruits, fellowship students, postgraduate students and senior resident doctors from BMCRI are running the show.</p>.<p>Barring security guards and staff nurses, the government has not been able to fill any of the other 73 posts that involves Physicians, Anaesthesiologists, Cardiologists, Pulmonologists, Pathologists, Microbiologists, Radiologists, Critical Care Unit doctors, duty doctors, pharmacists, biomedical engineers, dieticians, junior lab technicians, junior 'radiological technologists' and group D staffers.</p>.<p>Dr Manoj Kumar, Director-cum-dean at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital (under whose control Charaka is), said, "Despite offering a monthly salary of Rs 1.2 lakh, doctors have not come forward. So we are forced to post PG students from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). We have 85 student doctors for 100 beds: 16 postgraduate students, 40 senior residents, and 14 fellowship students. Bowring Medical College is only two years old and we have only one batch of students who have graduated that consists of students from Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. They cannot substitute for those from the department of medicine."</p>.<h4><strong>Doctors protest against posting at Chakra</strong></h4>.<p>Karnataka Resident Doctors' Association (KARD) in a letter written to BMCRI Dean Dr C R Jayanthi last month protested against being posted to Charaka. While Dr Jayanthi did not respond to queries from DH, the strongly-worded letter revealed the state of affairs.</p>.<p>"Wearing PPE, seeing deaths have caused huge strain physically as well as mentally among the residents. It is hereby unanimously decided among the residents that posting of resident doctors to peripheral hospitals for Covid duties will not be entertained. We have sacrificed our academics, risked our lives since so many days not to be treated like garbage to be thrown around at the whims and fancies of the authorities," the doctors wrote in a letter.</p>.<p>Dr Ramesh S M, President, KARD, and second year postgraduate student of General Medicine at BMCRI said, "After negotiations, the number of postgraduate students to be posted at Charaka have been brought down to 16 from the initial demand of 70. Charaka is a brand new hospital. The government should have recruited doctors since the hospital was being planned for months now. The same resident doctors from BMCRI are working everywhere: in Victoria, Bowring, Gosha, and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases.</p>.<p>We're suffering a shortage of doctors in our campus itself. Whenever a new health infrastructure is being planned, the government has to plan for human resource also. Resident doctors are being taken for granted and made into scapegoats."</p>
<p>A 100-bedded dedicated Covid-19 hospital on Broadway Road in Shivajinagar was inaugurated with much pomp in the last week of August by Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar and BBMP authorities, as having been readied in four months with sponsorship from Infosys Foundation. But there's no one to man this hospital as the government has received no response to ads put out way back in July for doctors and specialists. In the absence of fresh recruits, fellowship students, postgraduate students and senior resident doctors from BMCRI are running the show.</p>.<p>Barring security guards and staff nurses, the government has not been able to fill any of the other 73 posts that involves Physicians, Anaesthesiologists, Cardiologists, Pulmonologists, Pathologists, Microbiologists, Radiologists, Critical Care Unit doctors, duty doctors, pharmacists, biomedical engineers, dieticians, junior lab technicians, junior 'radiological technologists' and group D staffers.</p>.<p>Dr Manoj Kumar, Director-cum-dean at Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital (under whose control Charaka is), said, "Despite offering a monthly salary of Rs 1.2 lakh, doctors have not come forward. So we are forced to post PG students from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). We have 85 student doctors for 100 beds: 16 postgraduate students, 40 senior residents, and 14 fellowship students. Bowring Medical College is only two years old and we have only one batch of students who have graduated that consists of students from Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. They cannot substitute for those from the department of medicine."</p>.<h4><strong>Doctors protest against posting at Chakra</strong></h4>.<p>Karnataka Resident Doctors' Association (KARD) in a letter written to BMCRI Dean Dr C R Jayanthi last month protested against being posted to Charaka. While Dr Jayanthi did not respond to queries from DH, the strongly-worded letter revealed the state of affairs.</p>.<p>"Wearing PPE, seeing deaths have caused huge strain physically as well as mentally among the residents. It is hereby unanimously decided among the residents that posting of resident doctors to peripheral hospitals for Covid duties will not be entertained. We have sacrificed our academics, risked our lives since so many days not to be treated like garbage to be thrown around at the whims and fancies of the authorities," the doctors wrote in a letter.</p>.<p>Dr Ramesh S M, President, KARD, and second year postgraduate student of General Medicine at BMCRI said, "After negotiations, the number of postgraduate students to be posted at Charaka have been brought down to 16 from the initial demand of 70. Charaka is a brand new hospital. The government should have recruited doctors since the hospital was being planned for months now. The same resident doctors from BMCRI are working everywhere: in Victoria, Bowring, Gosha, and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases.</p>.<p>We're suffering a shortage of doctors in our campus itself. Whenever a new health infrastructure is being planned, the government has to plan for human resource also. Resident doctors are being taken for granted and made into scapegoats."</p>
