Acute shortage of doctors and college teachers in Nawada

Speed Post News Network

Nawada: Health and higher education sectors remain low on the priority list of the state government considering the fact that while hospitals run without doctors, college students ‘learn’ without teachers. The ratio of one doctor for every 35,000 person in the district, nonetheless, appears rather ‘robust’ to the ratio of two  teachers for every 40,000 students. Shockingly, these figures relate to the government hospitals and constituent colleges in Nawada.

When contacted, Nawada civil surgeon Dr Srinath Prasad said, “How many doctors can the less-than-a-dozen medical colleges in the state produce? At least 25 medical colleges are required in the state for a healthy doctor-patient ratio.”  Speaking on Nawada, he said that there are only 66 doctors against the sanctioned strength of 178. Despite reports highlighting the poor strength of doctors submitted to the state health department every month, nothing happens. Nonetheless, he patted himself saying that presently there are at least 66 doctors to the earlier 38 during his predecessors’ tenure!

As for the colleges in the district, the less said the better. Of the four constituent colleges in the district, many departments lie closed due to retirement/death of teachers.  At KLS College, the district’s premier institution in Nawada town, only 9 professors remain in service against the sanctioned strength of 78 while at SN Sinha college, Warisaliganj, only 7 remain in service out of the sanctioned strength of 39. Many important departments such as physics, chemistry, and zoology sport locks on their department doors. The other two colleges namely RMW College (for women) and TS College, Hisua, which were accorded constituent status in the second and third phase respectively, have slightly a better representation.

Ironically, there is a never ending rush of patients at the hospitals for treatment or students for admissions in these colleges and students prefer to migrate to either the state capital or other states for private coaching. Consequently, both physical and intellectual health, continue to remain the greatest causalities in Nawada. While quacks have proliferated in health sector, private colleges taking advantage of the situation, have mushroomed resulting in substandard quality of higher education.