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Acute shortage of nurses in Govt hospitals
Hyderabad: Acute Shortage of Nurses in Government Hospitals, According to a report by Health Watch, Osmania, Gandhi and Niloufer hospitals have been handling 100 to 200 per cent patients more than their capacity.
- Nurse-patient ratio is awfully inadequate
- Relatives are often asked to take care of the patients
- While patients suffer, nurses are also under tremendous pressure
Hyderabad: Shortage of nurses in the State-run government hospitals is acute and causing severe inconvenience to the patients. According to a report by Health Watch, Osmania, Gandhi and Niloufer hospitals have been handling 100 to 200 per cent patients more than their capacity.
This has put a strain not only on the nurses but also on the infrastructural facilities in the hospitials. Low birth weight babies and premature babies constitute major chunk of the patients in Niloufer Hospital and due to shortage of nurses, the parents were forced to take care of the babies and substitute in providing nursing care to their little ones.
“Nearly 70 per cent of the posts of nurses are vacant in the four major government hospitals in the city,” said a nurse working with the Institute of Mental Health, Hyderabad. The ideal nurse and patient ratio should be 1:6. But the ratio now was more than 1:10,” she added. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), scarcity of nurses leads to high rate of infant mortality and maternal mortality. This reflects the rapid decline in nursing care as well as patient care.
In Greater Hyderabad, every year nearly 1,500 nursing students pass out, but they migrate to other countries as the salaries there are much higher than what they get here. Lack of government recruitment for the posts of nurses has also left many nursing graduates in the State disappointed. “According to Indian Association of Pediatrics, the nurse and patient ratio should be 1:5 and for American Association of pediatrics the nurse and patient ratio should be 1:1. In our government hospitals for 60-70 patients one nurse is available. Our medical and health department and State government are not doing anything to improve the situation,” said a doctor working at Gandhi Hospital.
“In Niloufer, the number of inpatients is over 1,000. While the total number of nurses there are 117. Of them, 14 have resigned. At present 102 nurses are available. Among them if two or three nurses go on leave, then only 100 nurses would be on duty in three shifts (per shift 33 nurses for 1000 in-patients available!). It reflects the work burden of nurses,” said a nurse in the Niloufer hospital.
“In Neonatal Intensive Care Unit 200 new-borns are being treated. And for every one baby one nurse should be there but instead three or four nurses are looking after all 200 babies there,” she added. “In ICUs, nurses should be 1:1 but we hardly see that situation,” said a doctor in the Osmania Hospital.
