Sambalpur, July 23: Veer Surendra Sai Medical College and Hospital at Burla, which has shot into a controversy over the death of nine newborns, has been grappling with acute shortage of medical staff for quite sometime.

The VSS Medical College and Hospital is the biggest health care centre in Western Odisha and caters to the neigbouring districts of Chhatisgarh. However, the hospital is running with 28 professors against the sanctioned strength of 36 across its 29 departments.

Similarly, there are only 56 associate professors against the sanctioned strength of 70.

As against 140 assistant professors, the medical college and hospital has only 61 assistant professors.

To make things worse, there are only 68 senior resident doctors though the hospital should have 110 such residents. Official sources also said that the transfusion medicine and the emergency medicine departments were running without doctors. The departments of pharmacology, ENT, nephrology, psychiatry and radiotherapy are also running without professors. The shortage of doctors has badly affected health service in the hospital.

“We have been demanding that the government takes adequate steps to ensure that the vacancies are filled. However, no initiatives have been taken as yet,” said Bhuwan Biswal, a local resident.

“The 1,000-bed hospital has been facing acute staff shortage for years. The government wakes up only when a controversy takes place,” said Dhananjaya Satpathy, another local resident of Burla.

The principal of the medical college and hospital, Santosh Behera, said that they were trying to manage the situation with the help of postgraduate students. “Around 40 doctors have already been appointed on ad-hoc basis. They are expected to join work within a week,” he said.