Internship
After a long hiatus, started writing again. Its very difficult to put words together cohesively with all the rage and anger.
This time, its about the crisis now the health service is facing.
Just to recap: the struggle of medical students against SAITM was taking place since 2010 (just when I entered medical faculty), it reached a peak when the students boycotted studies for more than one year. The moment the students started boycotting the studies, the health community knew that it is going into a crisis. But yet they did not do their best to arrive at the solution, the administrators, the directors, the consultants, the PG trainees, the MOs and the SHOs, they kept on with their routine life knowing that the crisis is imminent. I also kept on with my work and did not do my to the efforts of the juniors.
Now we are at the crisis to which the seeds were sown when students came out of lecture halls. From December 1st 2018, there are no intern house officers in the hospitals.
This is a small description of the ward in which I work.
Doctors : there are different categories. The consultant, he does his daily ward round, see the important patients or all the patients and is the person responsible for anything that is happening in the ward. But he has delegated that responsibility to his junior doctors.
PG Trainees - Senior registrars and registrars are working in the ward as a requirement for completion of their masters.
Senior House Officers - They are a rare species of doctors, only to be seen in the wards once in a blue moon, especially when they have to get their diary to be signed.
Many of the SHOs are not seen during the ordinary work time in the ward and are seen rarely doing the extra duty/ on calls. Yet they fill their diary saying that they have been in the ward in the ordinary time and also claim maximum over time allowance and the consultants and the administration in the NHSL allow such a practice. (We despise the politicians for the corruption and the scandals and we criticize them for Bond scam and MIG deal and all) But we turn a blind eye to this corrupt practice and I wonder what the conscience of the most respected and learned of the profession tell when they sign those diaries.
Nurses: I don't know much about their salary and their shifts, but the thing I can say is that they go to take their lunch/ dinner together leaving the whole ward unattended. God help the patients during that time.
Minor staff and the attendants: They are the very difficulty people to work with except for a few. They have a their duty times at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. But their a window of period in which there would be no attendants or minor staff for work in the ward, though the Over seer office would say that their is a person for duty during that time, the previous shift person would leave one hour early and the next shift person would arrive one hour late, the a gap of 2 hours created where everything gets stalled, be it sending a patient for urgent dialysis, be it getting an urgent x-ray, or coronary angiogram and PCI, they all have to wait until the minor staff and attendants come in their own time and do. It is frustrating that I feel that it is better for me to get the trolley and take the patient to the x-ray or dialysis. Here also God help the patients during this time as well.
The crisis is the group of interns currently doing internship now finishing on November 30th are being forced/ expected to continue the internship. The whole medical fraternity is mea culpa to this crisis but a small group which is the most junior of them is expected to take the burden.
PS: My description of the ward work cannot be generalized to other places.
This time, its about the crisis now the health service is facing.
Just to recap: the struggle of medical students against SAITM was taking place since 2010 (just when I entered medical faculty), it reached a peak when the students boycotted studies for more than one year. The moment the students started boycotting the studies, the health community knew that it is going into a crisis. But yet they did not do their best to arrive at the solution, the administrators, the directors, the consultants, the PG trainees, the MOs and the SHOs, they kept on with their routine life knowing that the crisis is imminent. I also kept on with my work and did not do my to the efforts of the juniors.
Now we are at the crisis to which the seeds were sown when students came out of lecture halls. From December 1st 2018, there are no intern house officers in the hospitals.
This is a small description of the ward in which I work.
Doctors : there are different categories. The consultant, he does his daily ward round, see the important patients or all the patients and is the person responsible for anything that is happening in the ward. But he has delegated that responsibility to his junior doctors.
PG Trainees - Senior registrars and registrars are working in the ward as a requirement for completion of their masters.
Senior House Officers - They are a rare species of doctors, only to be seen in the wards once in a blue moon, especially when they have to get their diary to be signed.
Many of the SHOs are not seen during the ordinary work time in the ward and are seen rarely doing the extra duty/ on calls. Yet they fill their diary saying that they have been in the ward in the ordinary time and also claim maximum over time allowance and the consultants and the administration in the NHSL allow such a practice. (We despise the politicians for the corruption and the scandals and we criticize them for Bond scam and MIG deal and all) But we turn a blind eye to this corrupt practice and I wonder what the conscience of the most respected and learned of the profession tell when they sign those diaries.
Nurses: I don't know much about their salary and their shifts, but the thing I can say is that they go to take their lunch/ dinner together leaving the whole ward unattended. God help the patients during that time.
Minor staff and the attendants: They are the very difficulty people to work with except for a few. They have a their duty times at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. But their a window of period in which there would be no attendants or minor staff for work in the ward, though the Over seer office would say that their is a person for duty during that time, the previous shift person would leave one hour early and the next shift person would arrive one hour late, the a gap of 2 hours created where everything gets stalled, be it sending a patient for urgent dialysis, be it getting an urgent x-ray, or coronary angiogram and PCI, they all have to wait until the minor staff and attendants come in their own time and do. It is frustrating that I feel that it is better for me to get the trolley and take the patient to the x-ray or dialysis. Here also God help the patients during this time as well.
The crisis is the group of interns currently doing internship now finishing on November 30th are being forced/ expected to continue the internship. The whole medical fraternity is mea culpa to this crisis but a small group which is the most junior of them is expected to take the burden.
PS: My description of the ward work cannot be generalized to other places.
Its depressing to read your article doctor. Very very sad situation to the patients and the Junior /Senior medical doctors at NHSlka. Please escalate to the higher Dept.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck.