PG students face hostel crunch in Hyderabad periphery hospitals

Hyderabad: Senior residents or junior doctors, as they are addressed in Telangana, should be ideally provided hostel accommodation within hospital premises as it would be convenient for them to attend duties, even emergencies whenever their presence is required.

However, almost all periphery hospitals under Osmania including Niloufer, ENT (Koti), Chest Hospital, Mental Hospital (Erragadda), Fever Hospital, maternity hospitals in Petlaburj and Sultan Bazaar don't have hostel facility within their premises to accommodate PG medical students. The only exception is Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital, that has its own hostel facility to house the PG students.

While day scholars come from their homes, some of the PG students (the outstation ones), including those pursuing PG (non-clinical courses) such as Pathology, Physiology, Microbiology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry etc, are accommodated in Osmania Medical College, Koti premises.

Non-clinical PGs do not have to attend to patients in OPs, wards and ICUs, and are confined to college and laboratory duties so they prefer hostel accommodation in Koti. Junior doctors working in the various periphery hospitals due to lack of hostel accommodation within the hospital premises are staying in private hostels and rooms preferring the ones in the close vicinity.

Staying in these temporary accommodations is taking their toll on some of the PG doctors as this season alone nearly 15 junior doctors in Niloufer tested positive for dengue, but post-treatment they fully recovered.

A senior doctor stated that NIMS, Panjagutta and Gandhi Hospital in the city and the most prestigious ones like AIIMS-New Delhi, JIPMER-Puducherry, PGIMER-Chandigarh etc. provide accommodation to senior residents within their premises. The term resident itself conveys that the PG student should be provided accommodation within the hospital premises, the doctor explained.

Osmania Medical College authorities stated that they got hostel accommodation demands from junior doctors as the number of PG students has grown considerably in the last few years with the addition of seats and new departments. The number of PGs doing broad-speciality (13 departments) and super-speciality (6 departments) is nearly 1,000 students, all three-year batches included.

Meanwhile, Telangana Junior Doctors Association members stated that they will pursue hostel facility demand with the higher-ups in the government in the coming months.