Imphal, September 22 2009: Lack of workforces has prevented the State Veterinary Hospital located at Sanjenthong here from providing services at the hospital for 24-hour a day to the utter disappointment of many visitors and clients.

At the same time, in the absence of specialist veterinary doctors during emergency at the hospital, some doctors were given additional duty to attend the animals brought there for emergency attendant.

According to source from the Veterinary and Animal Husbandry department, presently there are only six doctors - including the Superintendent and three lady doctors - in the hospital.

The female dominion of the population of the doctors in the hospital is also attributed for its inability to provide service at the hospital round the clock.

Another factor responsible for its inability to provide service round the clock is the lack of doctors, specialists, Field Assistants (FA), and Attendants in the hospital.

The hospital is opened in three shifts - morning, noon, and night shifts.

Numbers of animal brought for emergency treatment are recorded mostly during the night shift.

The department also admits that there have been altercations between the hospital authority and patient parties as they could not be given satisfactory service due to shortage of workforce.

"Lack of doctors and staffs has been preventing us from providing satisfactory services 24-hour a day though the hospital remains open round the clock," admitted Dr Th Jibon, the Director of the VAH department.

Dr Jibon attributed shortage of doctors and staff in the hospital due to the transfer and posting of staffs and doctors to various districts of the state in pursuance of the MGEL scheme.

"One of the main reasons for shortage of staffs in the hospital is the non-substitution of retired and deceased doctors, attendants and staffs of the hospital," he observed.

The director of the department said, the appointment of four more doctors and 20 FA and Attendants, to assist the two medicine specialists and two surgery specialists will solve the present problem faced by the hospital.

The hospital is presently utilising one ambulance van and it is without any animal ambulatory ambulance for the transportation of the big animals like cow and horse.

Increasing of the ambulance vans to two/three will make the functioning of the hospital more effective.

There has been infrastructural lack due to minimal allocation of budget from the planned fund, he observed.

It may be mentioned that Rs 360 lakh is only allocated for the department in the annual plan of 2009-10 .

Nevertheless, ignoring the shortcomings, the department is continuing vaccination to animals and giving regular rabies vaccination, the director said.

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