RTI shows 133 vacant posts at S Goa district hospital

Margao: Information obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act by an RTI activist has revealed that over 20 per cent of the sanctioned posts at the South Goa district hospital haven’t been filled.
An RTI query by Santosh Gholap filed on November 1 yielded information that of the 642 posts sanctioned for the hospital, 509 have been filled, leaving 133 posts vacant. Significantly, 90 of the vacant posts are those of doctors.
Medical superintendent of the hospital Deepa Correia preferred not to offer any comments over the issue.
Moreover, there has been no development over setting up a cardiac facility at the hospital since health minister Vishwajit Rane announced it in June 2021. As pointed out by TOI earlier, the hospital has neither been equipped with specialised staff nor infrastructure to run a super-specialised cardiac unit.
“People from South Goa will no longer have to travel to GMC for treatment of cardiac ailments once the facility is started at the South Goa district hospital. I have already spoken to the CM in this regard, and the facility will be opened soon,” Rane had said. The cardiac facility will be under the aegis of Goa Medical College, he had said.
Sources in the health department however maintained that work on the unit was in progress.
The cardiology unit will be set up in a separate critical care block (CCB). CCBs are being set up across the country in districts with over five lakh population and in all state government medical colleges, district hospitals and central institutions after Covid highlighted the need to strengthen the healthcare infrastructure.