THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association (KGMOA) has urged the government to appoint more doctors to meet the public demand. According to the association, the doctors in government hospitals are overworked, and the quality of treatment would be compromised if the situation is allowed to continue.
The members pointed out that a recent case where a doctor in a public health centre at Velloor in Kottayam fainted due to fatigue was not a lone incident.
“The WHO recommends a patient-doctor ratio of 1:1,000. To maintain that ratio, there should be 17,665 doctors in the government sector against the present strength of 6,165.
Around 50% of the patients are dependent on government hospitals,” said a joint statement of KGMOA state president Dr T N Suresh and general secretary Dr Sunil P K.
They said the rights of both patients and doctors are trampled because of the lack of efforts to increase the strength of doctors.
The patients get just 2-3 minutes of the doctors’ time during the outpatient consultation. This dissatisfaction among patients can also lead to more hospital attack cases, they said. The health centres have the additional burden of participating in disease prevention programmes, state-national health programmes and other projects on social security.