AMC run Shardaben Hospital faces staff crunch

The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC)-run Shardaben Hospital in Saraspur is facing acute shortage of manpower. Congress corporators, who visited the hospital on a fact-finding mission, discovered that the hospital is short of nurses and technical staff.

Shardaben Hospital has 148 posts of nurses, 40 of which are vacant. "The hospital has three assistant laboratory technicians instead of five, one of whom is going to retire next month," said Surendra Baxi, Congress councillor from Kalupur ward. The hospital has only two X-ray technicians instead of four. Besides, 145 posts of Class IV employees are still lying vacant.
Baxi said that the ruling party in the civic body and the administration are both responsible for keeping the hospital starved of staff.

"They are more than ready to buy new equipment or construct new rooms required under norms of Medical Council of India (MCI) because there is chance of making money in these activities. But they ignore MCI norms when it comes to recruitment of staff," said Baxi.

He also pointed out that the hospital has a budget of only Rs8 lakh for providing medicines to poor patients. Hence poor people end up paying from their pockets for costly medicines.