Pune Hospital's Resident Doctors On Strike Over Medical Staff Shortage

Resident doctors of Pune's Sassoon General Hospital went on strike today over shortage of manpower at the hospital to treat the growing number of patients.

The emergency services will continue during the protest.

Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors had written a letter to the hospital administration demanding an increase in the number of health staff to treat patients. The administration however did not respond to any of the demands raised by doctors after which the association has decided to stop non-essential and non-emergency-related services.

The hospital administration has not yet reacted to the situation.

Sassoon Hospital is one of the major government hospitals in Pune treating COVID patients in a time when the district is reporting over 10,000 cases every day.

Speaking to ANI resident doctor Dr Vijay Yadav said, "The administration has proposed to add around 300 new beds in view of rising cases of COVID-19 however the present patient flow itself is too high at the hospital that the whole health staff is overburdened with the work. We are indeed ready to serve more patients but for that, it requires more manpower which we are demanding from the hospital administration."

Another resident doctor Dr Dnyaneshwar said, "The casualty department is full of patients, there are two to three patients lying on one bed. The current flow of patients is indeed high and in such a situation we need more health staff including nurses, doctors to help us treat the patient. We have decided to shut the non-essential and non-emergency services here from today till the time administration listens to our demands."

Patients from across the Pune district reach Sassoon Hospital for treatment and in present situations when COVID cases are high in the district many doctors have also tested positive here.

Speaking on this, a resident doctor said, "Over 80 resident doctors here from us have tested positive for COVID19 in the last month. We are continuously working round the clock and we are ready to do that as well. Earlier we used to have a quarantine system after a work of particular days but now there is no system as such. All we are demanding is the increase in the number of health staff so that we could treat all the patients well."

"We are doing 6000 tests per day right now and now the administration is planning to increase it up to 10,000 tests per day. With the given number of health staff present in the hospital, it is impractical for us to do it."

Pune district is among the most affected districts in Maharashtra for COVID-19. As many as 109 people lost their lives due to the deadly virus and 10,963 new cases of COVID19 were reported in Pune on Friday.