IMPHAL, October 9: The current law and order problem among others has led to an increase in the number of psychiatric cases in the State. Further, there are not enough doctors to tend to the patients at RIMS hospital.
A statistical report was gathered by IFP in the regard. The Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) was upgraded to the status of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare since April 1, 2007.
Among the 27 Departments of the Institute, the minimum number of doctors allocated and which has a maximum number of patients is said to be the Psychiatry Deparment.
At present, there are only four doctors at the Department, namely Dr. N Heramani Singh: Professor and Head of Department, Dr. Rk Lenin Singh: Associate Professor,Dr. Th Bihari Singh: Associate Professor and Dr. S Gojendra Singh as the Registrar. There are another seven non-teaching staff.
It was learnt that besides the patients admitted at the ward, around 60 to 120 patients are examined daily at the OPD (Out Patient Department).
According to records available, 66 patients were examined on October 8 out of which 38 are new patients. Today, 122 patients were observed among which 76 were new patients. 6 mala patients and 14 female were admitted in the ward today.
A total of 14,705 were admitted in the OPD ward beginning from April 1, 2011 till 31 March 2012. There have been a total of 103 cases referred from other departments of the Institute. During the year,273 male and 143 female patients have been admitted in the ward for treatment. The total of 416 patients occupy about 95 % of the beds in the ward and each patient stays at least 15 days approximately. 7 emergency cases were treated during the year.
Detailing about the hindrances faced by the Department in providing medical aid, Dr. N Heramani Singh mentioned to IFP that the strength of four doctors pertains to the norms of the Medical Council of India. He however mentioned that the ‘present scenario’ of the State has adversely affected the public and the number of new psychiatric cases is on the rise.
“The doctors’ strength cannot tend to the needs of the ever growing number of patients and many are left unsatisfied”, he said.
The Post Graduate (PG) and non-PG students are attached to the doctors of the department, but the 1st Semester and 2nd Semester students are not capable of handling the complicated cases. Moreover, patients without tickets have to be examined as to tender humanitarian service. “It cannot be presumed that it takes only 5/10 minutes to see a patient, sometimes an hour is not enough to study the psychological problems of a patient, there are emergency patients also”, Heramani added that the need of the hour is to augment the strength of the medical staff of the department for effective addressal of the patients.