Bhubaneswar, Aug. 28: The comptroller and auditor general (CAG) has pointed to inadequate infrastructure, including lack of beds in intensive care units (ICU) and general wards, for poor services at three premier medical college-cum-hospitals in the state.

Staff shortage, both teaching and non-teaching, has further compounded the problem, the CAG said in its report on general and social sector for the year ending March 2014. The report was tabled in the Assembly today.

Against the requirement of 188 ICU beds at SCB Medical College, Cuttack, MKCG Hospital, Berhampur and VSS Medical College, Sambalpur, only 69 beds were available. Of these, 44 were at SCB, 16 at VSS and nine at MKCG hospital.

What is of worry is that for these 69 ICU beds, only 36 functional ventilators were available. Besides, there were no ICU beds available for paediatrics and neurosurgery patients at MKCG hospital and for those suffering from tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases in all the three medical colleges. At SCB, the daily average count of patients on ICU waitlist ranged from 15 to 57 during the period.

After the report was presented in the Assembly, principal accountant general Devika and accountant-general R. Amabalavanan addressed a press conference underscoring how medical services in the state had been hit.

The report pointed out that there was no waiting room for patients in the operation theatres of four clinical departments - paediatrics, medicine, general surgery and orthopaedics - at the three medical college hospitals. This had resulted in corridors of the operation theatres being used as waiting rooms both for patients and their attendants.

While there were no common collection centres for pathological investigations at the three medical colleges, facilities for immune-pathology tests were also not available. The laboratories also did not have accreditation of National Accreditation Board for hospitals and health care providers.

While patients suffered because of lack of facilities at these three premier hospitals, equipment worth Rs 3.84 crore gathered dust at these health care centres during this period. The CAG also expressed concern about patients being provided sub-standard medicines and absence of provisions for making test reports a pre-requisite for issuing drugs. This, the report states, had taken a toll on the system endangering the lives of patients.

To make matters worse, these medical colleges were also hit by shortage of teaching and non-teaching staff with 33.84 per cent posts for assistant professors and 28.43 per cent for nursing staff lying vacant.

Besides, the syllabi at the SCB Medical College and the MKCG Medical College had not been revised since 1997. Sixty per cent of the faculty in the three colleges felt that the syllabi were outdated. The CAG has also pulled up the government on this count.