RANCHI: Almost three years after its inauguration, Jharkhand's first state-of-the-art trauma centre at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims) is yet to start full-fledged operation owing to a lack of manpower and absence of a central air compressor system and central vacuum system, which are essential for conducting surgeries.
Built at a cost of Rs 64 crore, the trauma centre was inaugurated in July 2019 with an aim to establish a world-class facility for providing assistance to trauma cases and to start a critical care unit for patients requiring round-the-clock ICU treatment with proper monitoring. However, the four-storeyed centre has only 15 ICU beds functional against its capacity of 120 beds, which includes 50 ICU beds.
On being asked why only 15 ICU beds are functional at the trauma centre, a senior faculty at the critical care department said that they have only two nurses. "How many beds can we run with two nurses? We had over 40 paramedics during the peak of the pandemic and they were trained for running the ICU. But they left as they weren't paid their salaries on time," said the faculty.
From March 2020 to January-end this year, Rims was being used as a dedicated Covid-19 hospital. When the third wave of the pandemic receded towards the beginning of this year in Jharkhand and the number of Covid patients went down, the hospital management on March 1 conducted an inspection. The governing body, too, has passed a proposal through which a total of over 120 support staff had to be deployed at the centre. However, nothing has materialized so far, even though six months have passed since the proposal got approved.
Upon contact, the deputy medical superintendent of Rims, Dr Sailesh Tripathi, said, "We were constantly trying to shift the emergency ward and start the full-fledged operation of the trauma centre, but due to the opposition over a few points it could not be done. Those points will soon be figured out and full-fledged operation will start."
Even as the hospital management is trying to shift the emergency ward at the trauma centre, doctors at the critical care department have opposed the move due to the unavailability of central air compressor system (used to regulate the patient's oxygen level) and central vacuum system (helps doctors in administering anesthesia).
"How can we treat emergency patients if we do not have a central air compressor and a central vacuum system? If we start treating such patients without these facilities, who will be held responsible if a patient dies?" a doctor preferring anonymity said.
