Gaya: The acute shortage of nurses at Anugrah Narayan Medical College Hospital here has failed to draw the attention of the state government.

According to official records, there are 427 sanctioned posts of nurses for the 544-bed hospital. However, around 40 per cent of the positions are vacant, as the working strength of nurses is only 256. Moreover, quite a few of these working nurses are on the verge of retirement.

The medical college caters to the health requirements of about one crore people living in the five districts of Magadh division and adjoining areas of Jharkhand. A fairly large number of patients from Chatra and Koderma districts of Jharkhand visit the hospital. The hospital often hits the headlines mainly for wrong reasons, including harassment complaint made by medicos, pitiable condition of wards and lack of proper drainage and sewerage among other issues.

Earlier, Magadh division commissioner Jitendra Srivastava, who also heads the committee to oversee the functioning of the medical college, said the health department was yet to clear the mandatory roster.

Besides hitting the functioning of the medical college and hospital, the shortage of nurses has also put a question mark on the hospital's expansion plans that include an almost three-fold increase in the number of beds from the existing 544 to 1,500.

Besides increase in the number of beds, a trauma centre, an emergency ward and super-speciality wards in several departments, including cardiology, neurology, nephrology and urology, are also in the pipeline. The state government too dreams big as it wants a 250 per cent increase in the MBBS intake from the existing 100 seats to 250 seats.

On the impediments in recruitment of nurses, hospital superintendent S.K. Sinha said the main problem pertained to roster clearance. "Appointments cannot be made without roster clearance and the state government has to approve the reservation roster."

"Inertia grips the hospital administration in making fresh recruitments and according to sources, the vacancies for nurses is unlikely to be filled up soon," said an RTI activist, Brajnandan Pathak.

"May be the controversy and serial inquiry into Grade III and Grade IV appointments made by the hospital authorities in the recent past continues to haunt them."

In June 2017, applications were invited for walk-in interview for the posts of assistant professor, associate professor and professor. About nine months have passed since the interviews were conducted but the candidates are yet to hear from the medical college and hospital authorities.