India's leading public hospital and medical education centre has failed to provide high quality medical services to its patients, a government audit report has said.
A shortage of doctors and infrastructure deficiencies at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, is depriving patients of quality time in diagnosis and medical care, the report by India's auditor general said.
An outpatient at the institute on average gets four to nine minutes of attention from a doctor, while the waiting time for surgery ranges from two to 34 months, it said. And at least three patients terminally ill with cancer are turned away each day for lack of healthcare facilities.
The report also said the institute failed to nurture trained medical professionals and stop the “brain drain.” The government subsidises medical education at the institute, but 49% of a sample of 390 doctors who had trained there had emigrated.
“The patient load we get is the price we're paying for our efficiency,” said Dr Pradeep Kumar Dave, director of the institute. The outpatient department, originally designed to cater for 500 patients a day, now receives nearly 6000 each day.
The institute is India's most attractive site for medical education, with more than 35000 candidates taking a screening examination for the institute's undergraduate medical degree programme that accepts 50 students each year.
Dr Dave said that the institute could not be expected to exercise control over students who prefer to emigrate. Health policy analysts say that the situation at the institute merely exemplifies the deterioration of healthcare services in the government sector.
“An institution intended for tertiary care has been reduced to a general hospital,” said Alok Mukhopadhyay, executive director of India's Voluntary Health Association.