Pune: The number of referrals from the Kamala Nehru Hospital’s paediatric ICU has dropped significantly since the appointment of four paediatricians one-and-a-half months ago, health hub officials said on Tuesday.Dr Smita Sangade, head of the paediatrics department at the hospital, said the paediatricians assumed charge on Dec 18 last year. “Our data shows that 27 patients were referred to the Sassoon General Hospital in Oct, 18 in Nov and six in the first half of Dec. After the new doctors joined, only one patient was referred in the latter half of Dec and one more in Jan,” she said.The PMC-run hospital had recruited 17 specialist doctors, 50 nurses and 60 sanitation workers last Dec to support the addition of 100 new beds to the facility. The expansion aligned with directives from the National Medical Commission, which mandated the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to add 100 beds to the hospital to satisfy norms for its affiliation with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College. The officials said the neonatal ICU also began admitting patients after PMC-hired senior doctors assumed charge. “Although ventilators were available earlier, the units could not function due to the absence of qualified specialists,” an official said.Dr Sangade said, “The doctors were appointed exclusively for the hospital, which greatly helped us save many lives.”Dr Kalpana Baliwant, deputy health officer, PMC, said, “We appointed paediatricians and other specialists solely for the Kamala Nehru Hospital because we had ventilators lying unused and many patients required specialised care.”Last Oct, Dr Aarti Kinikar, head of the paediatrics department at the Sassoon General Hospital, wrote to the Kamala Nehru Hospital and PMC urging them to upgrade their NICU facilities and reduce patient referrals to the already overburdened state-run hospital. While the municipal corporation had previously struggled to attract talent due to low pay scales, a decision to increase remuneration yielded positive results. The standing committee approved a monthly salary of Rs 2.5 lakh for specialist doctors, leading to the appointment of the specialists.
