We face the predicament of being medical officers in a district hospital with subspecialty services.
A shortage of doctors nowadays (mainly house officers) and the government’s efforts to channel all housemen to state hospitals have affected many of us.
With less manpower but the same workload, the burden has landed on our shoulders.
We have to perform the double job of medical officer and houseman during given working hours, oftentimes working beyond our normal hours to complete our tasks.
Furthermore, night blood-taking used to be done by house officers, but now this task has fallen onto us.
We have enough nurses working in each shift who should be able to help us with the night blood-taking, as we have to see new referrals, attend emergencies, carry out ward work, and continue with regular work the following day.
However, nurses require credentialing and privileging before they can take blood. Blood-taking is a basic skill that any health care personnel should have. Even house officers learn blood-taking, mainly after joining the workforce.
If this task can be shared with nurses, it will definitely ease our burden.
Multiple meetings have been held, but have yielded no proper solutions to the problems we are facing.
In times to come, there will be more doctors getting burned out and quitting for better offers and working environments. Worst of all, patient care might be compromised as one person has to cover multiple job scopes.
I hope the relevant authorities will look into the matter seriously and reinstate house officers at district hospitals.
Otherwise, make arrangements to assist with blood-taking during nights and weekends, when only three or four medical officers are working and are not be able to cope with covering multiple wards.
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