Health-care workers say more infra does not translate to better health care unless the govt creates adequate posts. The last time the issue received any attention was in 2017 when Thomas Isaac announced creation of 8,071 posts
The Budget 2025-26, presented by the Finance Minister in the Assembly on Friday, allocated more funds to the health sector for setting up more Cath labs, dialysis units, intensive care units and stroke units in Medical Colleges and major public hospitals
This will make Kerala the only State with Cath labs in all districts as well as the first State to achieve the status of having dialysis units in all District/General/Taluk headquarter hospitals
However, the news evoked disdain rather than enthusiasm amongst healthcare workers, who point out that more infrastructure does not automatically translate to better healthcare, unless the government created adequate human resources to run these facilities round-the-clock.
“The authorities should check how many ICUs or Cath labs in public hospitals are being utilised properly or are being run 24 x7, before creating more idling infrastructure. There are not enough doctors or ICU-trained nurses even in General Hospitals to run ICUs properly. The Health Services does not even have posts of ECG/ dialysis technicians. Every additional facility is run purely by “work arrangement” or by temporary staff posted by hospital management committees, a tightrope walk which often collapses at the slightest stress,” a senior government doctor said.
“In fact, one of the main reasons for the high mortality of leptospirosis last season was that every patient who needed intensive care had to be rushed to Medical Colleges where these are run 24 x 7 (with the help of medical students) unlike in our GH/district hospitals, resulting in overcrowding as well as delays at tertiary hospitals,” he added.
Another crisis now gripping many public hospitals is that many of these hospitals do not have sufficient funds to make local purchases or pay salaries of the hospital staff they have employed because the government owes them crores as reimbursement for the free treatment given to patients under various beneficiary schemes like Karunya Arogya Suraksha Padhati.
“This is a vicious circle which will be perpetuated because the public hospitals do not have adequate human resources to run the hospitals efficiently or HMC funds to tide over emergency situations. For all the lip service paid to preventive and primary care under Aardram Mission, the government’s sole focus is on high-profile projects such an Cath labs and liver transplant facilities, which are resource-intensive,” a representative of Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association said.
The last time, human resources in health received any attention was in 2017, when the then Finance Minister Thomas Isaac, announced the creation of a total of 8,071 posts, including doctors, nurses and paramedical staff in the Health Services and the Medical Education sectors together in the next three years.
However, after the first phase of Aardram Mission, staff creation took a back seat and this seriously affected the development of secondary care services under Aardram. The shortage of human resources in fact stunted the Mission, which has not been able to fulfill even a quarter of the lofty goals that had been set under it.
The recent report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the health sector’s performance in the 2016-2022 clearly points out the acute shortage of staff at all levels in the health system
The CAG report said that the deficiency of manpower in public hospitals not just affects the accessibility of public to quality healthcare but also exerts pressure on the available resources, thereby compromising on effective delivery of health-care services
Published – February 08, 2025 07:46 pm IST