RG Kar OPD footfall up three times in less than a fortnight
Times of India | 31 August 2024
Kolkata: The OPD footfall across city hospitals is rising gradually, including at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. At RG Kar, the epicentre of the agitation, the OPD count had plunged to 300 and 400 around Aug 20. Now, the number has risen close to three times that.
In the face of the rising patient count, a section of protesting junior doctors are also responding to SOS from seniors and assisting in patient care.But hospitals said admission rates are still low because admitted patients need round-the-clock doctor help and they can optimise admission only after the junior doctors resume work.
The patient count at govt hospitals started dipping from Aug 10 when the statewide cease work by junior doctors began. The drop became drastic after the mob violence at RG Kar Hospital on the night of Aug 14.
“After the new administration team took over and CISF personnel were posted here, the patient count has come close to 1,000 a day. We expect further increase by next week,” said an official at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
Faculty members and medical officers have been putting in extra hours to make up for the absence of close to 6,000 junior doctors. .
“Beds in our surgical oncology ward are nearly full and the number is now quite consistent. This is thanks to our resident doctors who are helping us. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to manage this number of patients. They understand that cancer care cannot be delayed. At the same time, we solidly back their demand for justice,” said Jayesh Kumar Jha, head of surgical oncology at IPGMER.
All hospital administrators said OPD and other services were never closed as senior doctors were available 24x7. But patients’ perception about the cease work had made them stay away from hospitals.
“There was a dip in patient count on the day of the Nabanna Abhijan and the bandh the next day. Now, it has picked up again, to around 3,500 a day,” said an administrator at Medical College Hospital.
All five medical colleges in the city used to get between 8,000 and 5,000 patients every day at their OPD counters. While the patient count at RG Kar is still not even one-fourth of the count before the agitation, in the rest of the medical colleges, OPD footfall now ranges between 50% and 70% of the usual count.
“Managing OPD patients is not a big issue. The difficulty is managing patients in the ward round the clock in the absence of the PGTs, which all senior doctors are doing by working extra hours in solidarity with their demands. They also want to come back to work provided they see some hope for justice,” said Yogiraj Ray, associate professor of infectious diseases at IPGMER.