Kashmir’s tertiary care hospitals as well as the peripheral hospitals are bereft with shortage in the number of nurses. According to experts, hospital facilities requiring high density of nursing staff, such as the Intensive Care Units (ICU) and post-operative wards, are the worst affected by this shortage.
International standards and Indian Nursing Council standards are different when it comes to patient-nurse ratio. Dr. Farooq Jan, Medical Superintendent SKIMS said, “We may not be fulfilling the international standards, but we are fine by national standards.” He claimed that there is one nurse per patient in ICU but other doctors differed on this claim.
“Ideally, there needs to be one nurse per patient, but we have four nurses for an ICU of 14 beds. That should speak for itself,” a senior doctor at SKIMS said. This scenario, as per the doctors, is detrimental to the patients’ survival chances. “We are dependent on the attendants to look after the patient, give medicines, take readings etc. which is unethical. The patients are operated upon and left to be cared for by their families,” a doctor in SKIMS said.
“There are monitors in the ICU but who is monitoring these monitors? We are bound to miss the signs and symptoms that should prompt us to act as doctors,” a doctor at SMHS Hospital said. At SMHS Hospital ICUs, there are only two nurses per shift.
Principal GMC, Dr Rafiq Ahmed Pampori, agreed to the shortfall in nursing staff. “We have lot of vacant posts and these need to be filled by SSRB. There is very little we can do,” Dr. Pampori said. He added that the hospital hires nurses on academic arrangement and contract. But there are retention problems with this set-up.
At SMHS Hospital, Greater Kashmir has learnt that one nurse caters to three wards during night. Some of these wards house patients requiring post operative care. An HoD at SMHS Hospital said, “After the operation, the ball is in the nurses’ court. The patient needs nursing care. But given our shortage, there is no proper dressing and cleaning of wounds and no care and cleanliness.”
Reportedly, GB Pant Paediatric Hospital is also facing serious shortage of nurses which is affecting patient care.
During the day hours, the scenario is not very different. There is one nurse per ward at this hospital. “When a nurse has 30 beds to look after, she ends up looking after none,” a senior doctor said.
In SKIMS Cancer Day Care, more than 20 patients line up for getting their chemotherapy doses injected. There are just a couple of nurses and a long wait for the patients. “If the terminally ill and people with malignancies are not prioritized for nursing care, then who will be,” an attendant of a cancer patient at SKIMS said.
The peripheral hospitals are also facing difficulties. Reportedly, some hospitals run on only one nurse for the entire hospital. “People often complain about lack of care in rural hospitals. This care, apart from the doctor, is to be provided by the nurse. But she is not available,” a doctor at a district hospital said.
Healthcare experts said there is an urgent and dire need to hire more nursing staff for peripheral and tertiary care hospitals.
Dr. Pampori said, “We need to hire nurses on permanent existing positions, enhance their remuneration and also increase the number of positions of nurses.”
A SKIMS HoD said, “Politicians cry hoarse that no patient should go outside the state for treatment. But outside the state, he will at least get his injection in time.”
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