West Bengal’s plan to build 34 new hospitals faces staffing hurdle
New hospitals to have capacity to accommodate 300-500 patients, and total staffing need has been estimated at 13,600
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Business News/ Politics / Policy/ West Bengal’s plan to build 34 new hospitals faces staffing hurdle
Kolkata: West Bengal is building 34 super-speciality hospitals in remote parts of the state at an estimated cost of ₹ 2,300-2,400 crore, but government officials fear it may be impossible to staff these facilities. Getting doctors to run even primary health centres is a challenge at some of these locations, they say.
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In a state that has on its payroll only two specialists in surgical oncology, the project is an example of how scarce central funds are being wasted on populist initiatives, many of which will turn white elephants in the not-so-distant future, say government officials.
The project was conceived after the Trinamool Congress came to power in 2011. The department for health and family welfare is headed by chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who speaks effusively about this initiative.
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Most of the money for the project—around ₹ 2,100 crore—is coming from the centre’s backward regions grant fund, and most of these facilities, being built by construction firms such as Larsen and Toubro Ltd and Shapoorji Pallonji and Co. Ltd, are going to be ready within a year, according to Malay Kumar De, principal secretary in the department for health and family welfare.
He described the project as a “path-breaking initiative" aimed at making advanced healthcare facilities available in the remote interiors of the state.
But most other officials in his department are sceptical about the administration’s ability to staff these hospitals. Getting specialists to work for government hospitals is a challenge even in Kolkata. To get them to work in the remote interiors of Purulia, Bankura and West Midnapore districts is almost impossible, they said, asking not to be identified.
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It is impossible to get doctors with postgraduate degrees to work at hospitals in these districts, said Chittaranjan Maity, a former health department official who is now the principal of KPC Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata.
State-owned facilities at remote locations such as Nayagram, Onda and Chhatna (where some of these new hospitals are being built) have always had limited resources, both in terms of hardware and physicians, Maity said, adding that it isn’t remunerative for doctors to work at such hospitals.
There is a shortage of at least 2,000 doctors at existing state-owned healthcare facilities, admitted B.R. Sathpaty, director of health services. While refusing to comment on the problem of staffing the forthcoming facilities, he said West Bengal’s doctor population ratio of 1:9,618 is better than the national average of 1:11,455.
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The state is looking to bring it down to 1:7,000, he added.
Other health department officials said staff shortage at all state-run hospitals put together is estimated at 6,000. Doctors account for at least half of that, and it is because of this deficiency in manpower and infrastructure that the Medical Council of India is threatening to slash 1,000 seats at West Bengal’s medical colleges, they added.
The new hospitals are going to have the capacity to accommodate 300-500 patients, and the total staffing need for these new facilities has been estimated at 13,600, according to health department officials. Their salaries would cost the state exchequer at least ₹ 600 crore annually, they said.
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But a finance department official said the actual burden would be a fraction of that amount because these hospitals are never going to get operational in the manner that they are intended to. This person, too, asked not to be identified.
The funds could have been better used in various ways to improve healthcare facilities in the state, but the administration chose to build super speciality hospitals, he added.
Officials who objected to the plan were overruled, according to the finance department official.
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