No senior doc to see patients at SMHS on Sunday

As if Sunday is a ‘sickness holiday’, the patients admitted at SMHS Hospital are left at the mercy of junior doctors. The senior doctors do not take rounds of the wards and important decisions about patients’ treatment are either postponed or taken by house surgeons or registrars at the most.
A junior doctor who did not want to be named said that sometimes they face difficulty in decision making about diagnosis and treatment.
“Normally, it is the seniors who make the decisions,” he said. “The junior doctors are made to feel less confident because senior doctors audit the ‘changes’ to the treatment protocol in the next round. Therefore, we try not to change any course of treatment, even if we feel it is needed.”
Principal Government Medical College Srinagar, Dr Rafeeq Pampori, said   that earlier the consultants would not make rounds on Sundays, but that they have made roasters now. Asked about whether the roasters are adhered to, he remained ambiguous and said that things are improving.
It is a point worth pondering that a patient arriving at hospital casualty on a Saturday and subsequently admitted will have to wait till Monday to be seen by a senior doctor. The arrangement of having a ‘Consultant on Call’ in the Casualty is but a mockery of the healthcare needs.
According to sources, the ‘On-call Consultant’ sometimes resides so far that it is impossible for him/her to reach when it is needed. Dr Pampori however said that the consultant is not on duty anywhere in the world at nights. “We also ask the On-call consultants to reside nearby so that they reach in time for an emergency consultation,” he said.
However, there is no mechanism in place to ensure either the close coordinates of the consultant or the attendance on the call. The matter seems to have been left to the individual conscience of the doctors concerned.
In July last year, the High Court in a judgment to a PIL, had directed the hospitals to ensure that ‘Consultants attend to night duties’. Sadly, neither the PIL highlighted the absence of consultants from hospitals on Sundays, nor has any suo motto of this issue being taken.
The result is that hospitals function in shifts, where consultants are available for select hours only. A patient needs to be lucky enough to fall sick in these hours only to be seen by a senior doctor.