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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
City hospital lacks 26 doctors, 50 nurses
By Linette C. Ramos
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
In a hospital with a shortage of some 50 nurses and 26 doctors, all it takes is one patient having a heart attack to temporarily suspend or delay the delivery of services to other emergency room patients.
About 15 other patients were waiting at the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) emergency room internal medicine section yesterday afternoon. But because only one doctor was available, they could not be attended to immediately.
CCMC Chief Myrna Go said yesterday they want to attend to the needs of their patients as soon as possible, but with only two doctors available per shift at the emergency room, they can only do so much.
On call
The two doctors are also on call for duty at the surgery department.
The only pediatrician on duty for a three-day shift has to keep watch of the emergency room, nursery and pediatric department.
As of this month, CCMC has a shortage of at least 50 nurses, 13 resident doctors and 13 permanent doctors.
Much as they want to, Go said they couldn’t fill the vacancy yet because there are no applicants so far.
The ability of the doctors and nurses to cope with the shortage was put to the test the past two days when admission at the emergency room was abnormally high.
“There were a lot of patients yesterday and today, and with only two doctors, maybe some were not attended to right away, or perhaps the patients just didn’t see the doctor because of the big crowd of patients at the ER,” Go told Sun.Star Cebu.
Go reacted to complaints of some patients that no doctor was available at the ER to attend to the waiting patients last Sunday night and yesterday afternoon.
She learned that the two doctors who were on duty at the emergency room last Sunday were asked to go to the surgery department to perform an operation.
Wait
“Malangay gyud ang pag-atiman nila sa kadaghan sa pasyente but as much as possible, maninguha gyud mi na dili malangay (We can’t attend to them right away because of the number of patients, but we try to immediately attend to them),” she said.
At the emergency room yesterday, patients having a heart attack, stroke, constipation, fever, difficulty in breathing and victims of vehicular accidents had to wait until a doctor or nurse would be available.
The only doctor available at the internal medicine section was attending to an old man who had a heart attack.
“Kining ing-ani kadaghan na pasyente, amo gyud i-prioritize ang pinaka-urgent na case, so amo gyud ning unahon og tabang ang giatake sa kasingkasing. We appeal to the patients to be more patient with us because we can barely manage with the shortage in manpower. Sometimes the scenario is even worse than this (With this many patients, we make urgent cases a priority, such as heart attacks),” a nurse said.
The old man succumbed to heart attack minutes after the interview.
To improve services at the ER, CCMC is hiring four emergency room doctors, which the mayor already approved. Go said they are just waiting for applicants to address the shortage.
Worsening
Go said they expect the problem on the shortage of health workers to get worse early next year when half of the resident doctors graduate.
She lamented that they are losing their nurses and doctors to foreign employers, while some doctors are resigning to study nursing. (LCR)
(October 11, 2005 issue)
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