Woman dead,Sion hospital says it lacks trained staff

No complaint was filed by Sheikh’s family and the body was sent for post mortem to detect the exact cause of death.

While the hospital administration has denied ‘negligence’ of any sort,doctors blame the incident on the lack of sufficiently-trained doctors at the hospital. “FNA is an extremely simple procedure and even a junior houseman can perform it. However,in this case,a senior resident doctor,who had been recruited from outside Maharashtra,performed the procedure,” said a doctor from the Radiology Department at the Sion Hospital.

“The doctor was clearly not sufficiently trained,but had to perform the procedure because all the other senior medical doctors have been posted to the peripheral hospitals.” Resident doctors at the hospitals have blamed the civic body’s ‘linkage’ plan for the paucity of quality doctors in major departments. From August 1,the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) posted senior medical doctors from the three main civic hospitals to the 16 civic-run “peripheral” hospitals of the city for a year.

“The plan has seriously affected the quality of treatment in the hospital. We end up doing about 8-10 MRI scans when we can actually do 60,” said Dr Sulaiman Merchant,the head of the Radiology Department. “Technically,the doctor was only supposed to supervise the procedure,but because we have been so short-staffed,she had to perform it instead.”

The other departments too are feeling the pinch. “Women in labour are being forced to undergo natural delivery because we don’t have enough doctors to perform Caesarian section. The number of deliveries in Sion Hospital is more than that of KEM and Nair hospitals combined and yet doctors from here are being sent to other hospitals,” said a doctor from the Surgery Department. Doctors from the ENT Department have also been complaining about the overload of patients and the acute shortage of specialised doctors.

However,Dean of Sion Hospital Dr Sandhya Kamath remained tight-lipped about the issue and denied lack of doctors in the hospital.