No applications of doctors in response to recruiting ad of Charaka Covid-19 hospital

Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar and BBMP officials had launched a special hospital dedicated to Covid-19 treatment on Broadway Road in Shivajinagar with 100 bed capacity in the final week of August. Charaka Covid-19 hospital is being prepared, sponsored by Infosys Foundation. However, the hospital is facing a major set-back, as no doctors are applying for the positions in response to the recruitment ads put up in the month of July for doctors and specialists.

Without the efficient doctors appointed as fresh recruits, the hospital is functioning by the inputs of fellowship students, postgraduate students and senior resident doctors from BMRCI.

The hospital is functioning with the adequate staff only for the security guards and staff nurses, rest of the 73 posts inclusive of Physicians, Anaesthesiologists, Cardiologists, Pulmonologists, Pathologists, Microbiologists, Radiologists, Critical care unit doctors, pharmacists, biomedical engineers, dieticians, junior ‘radiological technolgists’ and group D staffers have not been filled.

Dr Manoj Kumar, presently managing the Charaka Hospital said, “Despite offering a monthly salary of Rs 1.2 lakh, doctors have not come forward. So we are forced to post PG students from Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI). We have 85 student doctors for 100 beds: 16 postgraduate students, 40 senior residents, and 14 fellowship students. Bowring Medical College is only two years old and we have only one batch of students who have graduated that consists of students from Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. They cannot substitute for those from the department of medicine.”

Doctors have strongly protested for being posted at Charaka hospital last month, by writing to Karnataka Resident Doctors’ Association (KARD).

The letter stated, “Wearing PPE, seeing deaths have caused huge strain physically as well as mentally among the residents. It is hereby unanimously decided among the residents that posting of resident doctors to peripheral hospitals for Covid duties will not be entertained. We have sacrificed our academics, risked our lives since so many days not to be treated like garbage to be thrown around at the whims and fancies of the authorities.”