Staff, equipment shortage strains Sassoon General Hospital’s 24x7 emergency ward

1 2 3 Pune: Sassoon hospital's emergency ward and trauma care centre , which works round-the-clock to treat everyone from road accident victims to survivors of domestic violence, has been short of essential personnel and equipment for years now. The unit has only two operating theatres (OTs), which it shares with other departments. But in a single year, this centre performs as many as 1,500 surgeries, which is an average of four every day.

This is the unit that handles the worst of injuries, especially if the victim has sustained head trauma. Doctors said given the number of road accidents in Pune today, the shortage of equipment and staff at the unit has reached a critical point. "We have two operating theatres and one neurologist and an anaesthesiologist.



To increase the capacity, we will need more neurologists and anaesthesiologists. We can purchase equipment but getting human talent has been a problem," said Dr Shrinivas Shintre, who is in charge of the emergency ward and trauma care centre at Sassoon hospital. The trauma centre also receives all medico-legal cases and major injuries that are reported to the hospital, making it a pretty hectic 24x7 workplace.

Surgeries can last for hours (especially if it's head trauma) and since its two OTs are shared with the rest of the hospital, there's always a risk of an emergency case receiving delayed care. Dr Eknath Pawar, dean at BJ Medical College and Sassoon General Hospital (BJMC & SGH), said they have written to the Medical Education and Research Ministry about approvals for more staff at the 11-storeyed building, which has added 500 beds for the hospital. Dr Pawar said: "Staffing for the 11-storeyed building, which became functional during Covid, is yet to be approved.

We're short-staffed because we are admitting patients there. We've sent repeated reminders to the Ministry for approvals of Class 1 and Class 4 staff, for the new building. More people will help reduce load on all our departments.

" He added that presently Sassoon hospital has two CT scan machines and one MRI machine. "One CT scan machine is placed at the casualty ward while the other one is at the general ward. We have written to the collector's office and the Directorate of Medical Education & Research as well for one more CT scan machine and MRI machine.

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