Acute shortage of admin staff at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences in Ranchi: Survey

RANCHI: The 2,171-bedded Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (Rims), Ranchi, has only 73 staff for discharging administrative duties. The fact came to light after the Rims management conducted a gap analysis survey to ascertain the number of administrative staff in the state’s largest medical college and hospital in comparison to institutes with a capacity of 2,000 beds.
The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, which have 2,362 and 2,210 beds, respectively, have 908 staffs each for administrative work. The 2,059-bedded Jawaharlal Institute of Post Graduate and Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, has 421 staff.
The survey held a month ago had divided the administrative staff structure into five categories — administrative officers’ cadre, staff cadre, finance staff cadre, store staff cadre, and staff of administrative secretariat.
TOI spoke to faculty members and senior officials of Rims, who said the lack of administrative staff leads to delay in procurement of consumables, finance appropriations and allocations, handling salary and attendance of staff, besides maintenance and construction of new facilities.
Rims director Dr Kameshwar Prasad said, “The dearth of administrative staff affects the efficiency of departmental works and also patient care. The gap analysis report has been presented to the governing body of Rims. We are trying to better manpower.”
A faculty member said they have to run pillar-to post for getting an approval which gets delayed for months due to shortage of staff. “For instance, there is only one store officer to hand over consumables. He is also tasked with Ayushman scheme work. So our work requests keep pending for weeks and sometimes for months. Also, procurement and payment to vendors get delayed for years as the bills do not get cleared on time due to the scarcity of staff. This also affects patient care as vendors stop the supply of required consumables,” he added.
Health minister Banna Gupta said the findings have been presented before the governing body of Rims.