Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditaynath on Friday gave orders to turn the Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences into a 300-bed dedicated COVID-19 facility following a meeting with his team 11. However, resident doctors of the RMLIMS expressed concerns over the order as it might affect the treatment of thousands of patients suffering from diseases like cancer and heart-related ailments.
The doctors also voiced their concerns about the future of nearly 500 MBBS, 200 additional and 150 PG students as the complete focus on treatment of COVID-19 has led to loss of academic and resident training activities.
Speaking to News18 on condition of anonymity, one of the resident doctors at RMLIMS said, “Patients scheduled for future workup, interventions and surgeries at RMLIMS will be forced to get reassigned with new dates at other centers despite waiting for many months. Such patients will suffer a lot and will be lost to follow up. Diverting chronically ill, dialysis-dependent, sick and debilitated patients to other already over burdened medical centers would mean huge suffering and loss to patient health.”
“Many specialties like radiation oncology, medical and surgical oncology, urology and gastroenterology and neuro-oncology continued their impeccable services even during lockdown. We also catered to several such patients referred from other hospitals and institutes. Along with COVID-19, there are several other serious and deadly diseases already affecting the existing population. With already scarce tertiary care hospitals, shutting down these services would deal a huge blow to patient care,” said the doctor.
As per sources, around 500 students are currently pursuing MBBS at RMLIMS and additional 200 students are about to join in the next academic session. Also, there are around 140 PG students along with 41 super- specialty residents. Being a tertiary care center, a large section of population is dependent on RMLIMS for specialty, superspecialty and cancer care, including referred patients from within Uttar Pradesh and nearby states.
Meanwhile, another resident doctor at RMLIMS suggested running parallel services to specialties and COVID-19 care with expansion of COVID facilities at Lucknow Cancer Institute and existing 200-bedded RPG mother and child referral centers. “We Residents will offer our services at COVID facilities in rotation along with our routine and emergency patient care. Parallel duties to be done by the residents of RMLIMS, similar to residents at other tertiary care centers like SGPGI and KGMU,” added one of the senior resident doctors at Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences.
The chief minister also gave orders for posting of additional medics in Kanpur City and Lucknow, Awanish Kumar Awasthi, additional chief secretary home, said.
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