One of AIIMS’ biggest problems, insiders say, is senior doctors — mostly surgeons — leaving the institute because of professional dissatisfaction.
Of the 610 sanctioned posts, as many as 190 vacancies at different levels — professor, associate, assistant and additional professor — need to be filled. In September, three senior professors from the department of neuro-sciences — Dr B. S. Sharma, head of neurosurgery; Dr Aditya Gupta, associate professor of neurosurgery; and Sumit Singh, associate professor of neurology — resigned citing “professional dissatisfaction”.
Take the Ear-Nose-Throat department. Its sanctioned strength is seven but there are three vacancies at any given time. Over the past decade, more than 12 faculty members have left, resigned or retired. The latest being Dr K. K. Handa, an associate professor, who resigned after winning a legal battle over departmental seniority at the Central Administrative Tribunal.
The situation is no different in other departments.
“In the past four years, no recruitment have taken place. Last year, the governing body had advertised for 90 posts, but the recruitment drive ran into controversy as the posts were advertised for reserved categories only,” said an official at AIIMS. “After the Directorate of Personnel and Training intervened, new faculty admissions were put on hold.”
AIIMS deputy director, administration, Shailesh Kumar Yadav said, “We have 190 vacancies that have to be filled up through direct recruitment. We are waiting for instructions from the health ministry to fill up the 90 posts advertised last December.”

Best Brains, Worst Jobs

The medicos complain about
 Overcrowding of patients
 No time for research
 Poor security
 High work pressure
 Little remuneration
 Poor housing

The Way forward

 More waiting areas, patient screening at the OPDs so that only patients needing specialized treatment come to AIIMS
 Setting up a centralized information desk at the OPD, map of AIIMS at various places, better signages, dedicated staff to help patients.
 Easing up processes for research funds, hiring more faculty
 Strictly following one attendant per patient ratio, screening at entry points, hiring more security staff
 Hastening faculty recruitment process
 Offering competitive salaries vis-à-vis the private sector of hospital staff, including doctors.
 Funds should be allotted to refurbish the old houses and build new houses to accommodate faculty.

Three-year-old Neeraj Berma (name changed) has a nerve protrusion on his neck and needs a surgery, but he has been told to go home and come back two years later.
“On October 2, we were asked to come back for surgery in September 2011,” said his mother Madhu Berma, 28, who lives in an unauthorized colony near the posh Maharani Bagh neighbourhood in South Delhi.
“I have a choice between letting my son suffer for two years or take him to a private hospital, where they will charge us at least Rs 80,000.”
The case of the Bermas is not an aberration. Three other patients who need neurosurgery were given dates between August and September 2010.
Two were asked to come the next day for a date, while two others were not offered any dates at all.
Muhammad Shagir (28) from Bulanshahar is one of them.
He needs a date for his newborn son’s spinal surgery but has been turned away six times in one month.
“I can’t get a surgery date till I don’t get an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) done. Today, I was given a date for MRI for November 11,” said Shagir, who works as a daily wage labourer in an embroidery factory.
“The nerve protrusion in my son’s spine is getting bigger every day. What if he does not survive till November?”
He earns about Rs 150 a day and supports a family of six. “The two-day trip (to Delhi) and other expenses will cost me at least Rs 5,000 and then another trip for surgery. From where will I get the money?” he said.

Madhumati Devi, 23, went to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to get her son Gulshan (3) treated for cancer of the intestine. Her family spent three days looking for a bed, longer than it took them to reach Delhi from Khagaria district in east Bihar.
“There is no signage, no helpdesk or map to guide patients,” Devi said.
With over 40 departments and six super-specialty centres, AIIMS is a labyrinth spread over 165 acres. Most patients take hours — sometimes days — to negotiate their way across the sprawling campus.
“We reached the hospital at 8 a.m. on October 4 but made it to the cancer department only at 12.30 pm. By then, it was past OPD hours, so no one examined Gulshan,” said Devi’s 25-year-old husband Manoj Kumar, a daily wage labourer.
The Kumars received an appointment card only the next day and managed to meet the doctor after queuing up for more than three hours. Again, they were late for the OPD.
“It was after OPD hours but we begged the doctor to see our ailing son, who was crying in pain as one of his eyes was bleeding,” said Manoj.
The doctor examined Gulshan and asked the family to get him admitted the next day at 9 a.m. after getting some medical tests done.
By then, the laboratory had closed for the day. The next day, they stood in long serpentine queues again to get tested. “By the time the tests were done, the doctor in the ward refused to admit Gulshan, saying the bed had been allotted to someone else,” Manoj said.
By now, both the eyes of the little boy were popping out, looking as if they were about to explode.
Holding the little boy in his arms, the 63-year-old grandfather Raghubir Kumar was busy keeping the flies and the mosquitoes away.
“If AIIMS weren’t such a maze, his treatment would have started by now,” the old man said.
Many similar stories abound in one of the best hospitals in the country.
“The patient rush is huge and so is the campus. So far, we have not been able to make a central information desk for patients,” said Dr D. K. Sharma, medical superintendent.
“There are big plans for revamping the campus but everything takes time.”

Shah Rukh Khan fell from the roof of his Farrukhabad home in Uttar Pradesh and broke his leg. That was in September. By the end of October, undergoing treatment at the government-run Lok Nayak Hospital in Central Delhi, the eight-year-old boy’s name was drawing more attention than his wounded leg.

The namesake of one of India’s biggest cine stars and son of a rickshaw puller, Shah Rukh Khan did not even have a bed for himself at the hospital.

After the first round of treatment, Khan was asked to vacate the bed in the orthopaedic ward to make room for the next patient.

Sprawled on the cold corridor of the main hospital building, the little boy cried. “He is in a lot of pain even though the doctors plastered his leg after stitching the wounds,” said his father Abrahim, 39, who earns Rs 35-40 a day pulling a rickshaw.

“The doctors will open the bandage and also cut his stitches two days later. We can still fight the cold. I only hope my son does not catch fever,” he told HT on October 23.

Located close to Delhi Gate and both Old and New Delhi railway stations, almost 6,000 patients visit the hospital every day. This does not include the 1,200 patients admitted in the wards.

The hospital, however, is designed to treat only 1,000 OPD patients and 320 admitted patients on a daily basis.

“Neither the infrastructure nor the bed strength was planned to cater to the existing workload,” said Dr Amit Banerjee, medical superintendent, Lok Nayak Hospital.

“We receive patients not only from the entire old Delhi area but also from neighbouring states.” With a doctor-patient ratio of 1: 40 — one doctor for every 40 patients — bed shortages and an overcrowded waiting area are an everyday reality at the hospital.

That Lok Nayak Hospital also shares its sole waiting room with G. B. Pant hospital — which in turn has a daily patient footfall off over 3,000 — makes matters worse.

“We are examining the option of creating new waiting areas to solve the problem of overcrowding,” Dr Banerjee said.

Consumers in Tripura, India were shocked to learn that their local hospital morgue was being used to store food. The morgue storage facility was being used to store a type of fish called hilsa. Storage costs and refrigeration costs can be expensive in India. The hot climate makes it essential for proper storage of fresh fish or the meat can go rancid.

Local fish merchants had invented a creative scheme of cutting storage costs by bribing hospital staff to allow them to store fish alongside dead bodies in the morgue. Corrupt hospital employees received small payments for helping fish merchants store their fish inside the morgue. Fish was stored along with human bodies in cooling boxes for a charge of about $0.20 per kilogram per night. This rate was much cheaper than private refrigeration storage in India.

This corruption was uncovered by a local reporter who posed as a fish merchant and was given a tour of the facility by corrupt hospital workers. These unsuspecting hospital staff outlined the entire operation to this undercover reporter. The reporter wrote a story which brought to light this deceitful practice carried on my unscrupulous fish merchants. The Indian government took steps to bring to justice those involved in the crime.

The Indian health minister called for an investigation and suspended one employee. An investigation hopefully will reveal all participants involved. Once complete, the investigation may lead to the arrest and prosecution of corrupt hospital staff as well as those fish merchants using this illegal service to store their fish.