Better days ahead for Ruia Hospital

Repairs to buildings being undertaken, but shortage of staff is to be addressed

A stretcher-borne patient is being taken by an attendant and her relatives at the SVRR Government General Hospital in Tirupati.Photo: K.V. Poornachandra Kumar

Sri Venkateswara Ramnarain Ruia Government General Hospital, the largest public hospital in Rayalaseema, has long remained synonymous with neglect and poor patient care, but a silver lining is emerging to indicate that it will soon be a thing of the past.

Principal Secretary (Medical and Health) Poonam Malakondaiah spent as many as three days at the hospital recently to study the various aspects of its functioning. She was understandably dismayed by the rickety medical equipment, ramshackle buildings with leaky roofs and cracked floors and potholes-ridden internal roads and immediately ordered repair works.

While the main hospital building is getting a facelift, repairs have also been taken up in the female surgical ward, radiotherapy building and orthopaedic ward on a war-footing. Many dilapidated buildings are being revamped. However, there is one decades-old practice that is dodging a solution.

Vestibule needed

The buildings constructed more than 25 years back in this sprawling complex are widely scattered. Patients are moved from one ward to the other in stretchers and pulled manually between the buildings. Apart from the hospital attendant, the task of shifting the patient is also thrust on his/her family members, who will have to invariably tread the uneven and sun-baked roads.

Developing a vestibule system between the casualty building and the medical specialities block avoids this eyesore.

Collector Siddharth Jain’s recent intervention made the Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) get down to laying black topping the internal roads, as a special gesture. Mr. Jain’s triple role, apart from the Collector, as the Chairman of the Hospital Development Society (HDS) and Special Officer of the MCT, apparently ensured the process go smoothly.

More than the physical embellishment, the major issue that deserves attention is the reverse pyramidal growth of staff, i.e., the shortage at the bottom rungs, where the underpaid contract employees are overburdened compared to the regular workers drawing fat packs.

Focus has also to be laid on infusing confidence and commitment among the staff, providing management training to the doctors before entrusting them with serious administrative tasks, ensuring promotion of research and spending of quality time at the hospital by medical professionals.