MEERUT: With nearly 50% staff of two government hospitals here being assigned poll duties, the hospital authorities of Meerut district hospital and Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial (LLRM) Medical College are a worried lot. Both the hospitals are already facing staff crunch.Authorities said that with paramedical staff, sanitary workers and kitchen staff being assigned election duty, it will be a difficult to give proper facilities to the patients here.Out of the total 543 hospital staff working for PL Sharma district hospital and LLRM Medical College, 257 people have been assigned poll duty. The decision has worried the hospital authorities, who say that in the absence of paramedical staff, it will become difficult to provide all the facilities to the patients 24x7.“We have total 589 posts for the staff at Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial (LLRM) Medical College out of which only 389 are filled. And even out of these, 190 people have been assigned poll duty. We are left with 199 people – which include paramedical staff and sanitary workers. We have 22 wards and some of them will not even have enough lab technicians to function properly. In the absence of lab technicians, pharmacists, sanitary workers, pump operators and others, it will be a difficult work to make the hospital function properly. Most of them are off for training these days and will not be available on April 10 and 11. It will be a struggle of sorts to run the hospital during that time,” said Dr RC Gupta, principal, LLRM.Meanwhile, two teams of doctors from PL Sharma hospital – including a total of 10 doctors will also remain absent from the hospital as they have been assigned VIP duty for PM Narendra Modi’s visit on Thursday.“We have a total staff of 254, out of which 154 posts are filled. For election duty, 67 people have been assigned duty. This will indeed pose difficulty in functioning of the hospital. I have written to the chief development officer to cut duties of at least 23 people from the list but we are yet to get a reply,” said Dr PK Bansal, superintendent in chief, PL Sharma district hospital.

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