M A I N   N E W S

Hospitals employ untrained staff
From Raman Mohan

HISAR, Sept 5 — How safe are the hands you entrust yourselves unto should you need medical treatment in upmarket private nursing homes in Haryana? Before you decide for yourself, please note that among those who masquerade as paramedics are those who have never had formal professional training.

This is what happens when they take care of you. A six-year-old boy from a nearby village seeking treatment at a local private hospital was diagnosed as suffering from tuberculosis after the doctor advised a diagnostic test. He underwent treatment for TB for more than a month without any change in condition. Later, it was found that the hospital’s laboratory had made a mistake. He never did have the dreaded disease.

In another case, 35-year-old Sharda hailing from a nearby village was told after a test that she was suffering from cancer. Fortunately, she preferred to seek a second opinion from senior doctors at Rohtak Medical College. After several days of tests she was told that she was suffering from a minor ailment.

Inquiries in both cases revealed that the samples for the laboratory tests had been taken and tested by untrained persons. Both were school-dropouts who were conducting the tests as a routine without any formal training. It was found that while they conducted the tests, the doctors merely signed the reports.

Further inquiries from various districts revealed that almost every private nursing home run by qualified doctors was manned by untrained paramedics. Male and female nurses, physiotherapists, opticians, laboratory technicians and radiographers were being employed without professional qualifications. They were responsible for executing the line of treatment suggested by the doctors. Only a negligible number of nursing homes had trained paramedics. Even charitable hospitals were found employing untrained paramedics.

Haryana has more than 2,000 privately run nursing homes and hundreds of pathological laboratories which together employ about 25,000 persons performing jobs of trained paramedics without professional qualifications. Over the past decade or so, they have completely replaced trained paramedics, including nurses hailing from South Indian states. It is learnt that since they have to be paid less, all hospitals prefer to employ jobless rural youth and “train them”.

When contacted, doctors running nursing homes said trained paramedics were not available in Haryana because of lack of adequate training institutes. Those who were professionally trained preferred government hospitals. Thus, they had to depend upon raw hands and had to train them.

However, The Tribune found that very few attendants of patients were aware that the “chhota doctor” was merely a school-dropout or at the most a plain matriculate. Barring a few patients from educated urban families, others were under the impression that all helping hands in private nursing homes were professionals.

It is learnt that except a few, all other nursing homes have arrangements with local laboratories for diagnostic tests. The laboratories depute untrained technicians to these hospitals who perform simple tests in the nursing home itself and write the reports on letterheads of pathologists signed in advance. Samples for more complicated tests are sent to the pathologists’ laboratory where these are handled by “more experienced technicians”. Health Department officials say it is hard to initiate action since the nursing homes do not maintain a record of such employees. In many cases they are shown as receptionists and other office staff.