Govt health facilities empty as officials posted on election duty

BENGALURU: With the District Election Officer ordering medical and paramedical staff of government hospitals, including primary health centres (PHCs) in Bengaluru on election duty, there is a shortage of medical staff in government health facilities and patients are not getting proper treatment.

About 90 per cent of the staff at Sir C V Raman General Hospital in Indiranagar and Jayanagar hospitals have been assigned for election duty. From just one hospital in Jayanagar, 75 staff nurses have been posted on election duty. People claimed that the spread of diseases is increasing over the last week and demanded that the Election Commission should not post doctors and paramedical officers on election duty.

Following the shortage of medical staff, Health Commissioner Randeep D wrote a letter to chief election officers and district election officers requesting that doctors and paramedical staff be relieved of election duty while pointing out that treatment of patients will be affected.

Health Commissioner Randeep D has written to the election officials to relieve health staff from election duty.

Randeep, “After discussions with the BBMP, doctors have been exempted from election duty. If there is a shortage of paramedical staff, it will be difficult to provide essentials service. It will affect OPD consultation and emergency surgery. I will request the BBMP again to relieve them. We should retain basic staff in hospitals to attend to emergency cases. Earlier, we had suggested that administrative and technical staff be deployed on election duty. If there are not enough nurses, doctors will face problem during emergency situation”.