Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) is on a major drive to recruit more doctors at its 30 maternity homes in Bangalore and in its outskirts. The orientation programme for doctors has been intensified and a preventive healthcare pilot project has been initiated to control diseases like gastroenteritis, malaria, dengue fever apart from early detection of neurological and cardiology disorders.

As a step to help overcome the severe shortage of doctors and nurses in the maternity nursing homes, the BMP has taken a decision to commence compulsory night duty for doctors in the maternity nursing hospitals. There are 50 doctors on the rolls of BMP for nursing homes alone. The actual numbers required is 150. For the time being BMP would post doctors on night duty in its referral hospitals, which mainly serve the maternity cases.

Out of the total 30 BMP maternity homes, apart from urban health centres and dispensaries coming under the Referral Hospitals run by the BMP, 23 are situated within the city limits and seven have been relocated to the outskirts to cater to the maternity cases there. The hospitals run buy the BMP operate under three zones of Bangalore South, East and West. Each zone has two referral hospitals with maternity homes, urban healthcare centres and dispensaries coming under its purview. The south zone has 10 maternity homes under its two-referral hospitals. The East zone has six maternity homes and West zone has seven.

According to informed sources, BMP hospitals are facing numerous problems: unclean wards, shortage of doctors, hospital staff, poor lighting and water scarcity. There is massive paucity of funds, according to senior BMP officials. But the State government officials informed that funds are underutilised and misused.

Speaking to Pharmabiz.com MR Sreenivasa Murthy, commissioner, BMP admitted the negligence at BMP maternity homes. He said that within a month doctors would be posted in all the maternity homes and if they were not available during the specified night duty hours, they would be terminated from service.

A proposal to this effect has been sent to the government of Karnataka seeking permission to recruit more doctors even before the episode where the patient delivered her baby that slipped and died without the assistance of hospital staff. The Government has refereed the incidence of the baby's death as gross negligence, but officials at the BMP health section state that government's ban on recruitment is the sole cause of the issue. Despite the setback, we would post a minimum number of doctors in the Referrals Hospitals now, said BMP commissioner who was optimistic that the pending proposal would be cleared soon. These doctors are expected to attend emergencies in the maternity homes that come under their purview.

For the low income families, the BMP maternity homes are the only option for delivery. The preference for the BMP maternity homes to bigger government hospitals is primarily because of the comparatively lesser corruption practices. For instance, pregnant women at BMP maternity homes are taken to labour rooms for Rs. 10 by the attendants and in government hospitals the charges for the same task vary between Rs. 50-100. For the baby to be shown to the family members, nurses demand Rs. 50 in maternity homes regardless of the fact whether it is a boy or girl but in government hospitals, if it is a boy baby the charges are Rs, 300 and for a girl baby it is Rs. 150. Around 30,000 deliveries are conducted at BMP maternity homes every year, which is approximately 30 percent of the total childbirths in the city.

In order to curb corruption among the hospital staff that includes attendants, the BMP commissioner intends to organise orientation training for them.

Karnataka's minister for health and family welfare Kagodu Thimmappa, said that there was no need to have a fresh set of guidelines for the orientation programme for the staff as it was been regularly organised every month, instead he called for intensifying these programmes to include more hospitals staff of the 30 BMP maternity homes.

Dr. Susheela Sekhar, chief health officer, BMP that said at least 19 of the 30 maternity homes were built under the Population India Project. Till the project lasted, there were adequate doctors and once the project ended, BMP faced massive shortfall of doctors and nurses. To keep pace with the increase in deliveries, BMP is now keen to construct more maternity homes.