'Dieticians' end up as kitchen managers

HYDERABAD: People better suited for managing hospital kitchens rather than counselling patients on their diet are being recruited as dieticians under a GO issued 47 years ago. The GO, issued in 1956 and last amended in 1970, allows for recruitment of Class III employees with diploma in nutrition, but has no provision for recruiting post-graduates in nutrition and dietetics.As a result these post-graduates are being ignored despite several of them having interned in reputed teaching hospitals. Consequently, these diploma holders are designated as dieticians but in reality they only manage kitchens as they don't have the experience or the qualification to work as dietitians. A health department study of the functioning of canteens and dietitians in Andhra Pradesh Vaidya Vidhana Parishad hospitals revealed that these dieticians were only managing kitchens rather than providing dietary services. A senior government official associated with the study said that graduates in hotel and catering management ought to be managing kitchens. The dieticians' duty must be to ensure effective prevention and control of diet-related disorders and counselling critical patients, he said. But to do this the selected persons must be sufficiently qualified to discharge their duties, he said. The shortcomings of posting nonmedical and diploma holders as dieticians are felt most while counselling critically-ill patients such as those suffering from renal failure, heart-related diseases, prenatal mothers and patients suffering from gastroenterological disorders, a head of the department of a government hospital said. The Indian Dietetic Association's state chapter — which has scientists of the National Institute of Nutrition on its advisory board — had earlier requested the government to amend the rules of the GO.