Siliguri, Jan. 17: The North Bengal Dental College has been upgraded to a hospital to provide better treatment and free medicines to patients, but the facility lacks the infrastructure for improved services.
An order renaming the college as North Bengal Dental College and Hospital was issued by the state department of health and family welfare (dental branch) on January 4.
"The department felt the necessity of renaming the North Bengal Dental College as North Bengal Dental College and Hospital (NBDCH) for betterment of treatment services to the outdoor patients, supply of free medicines and others to the patient and to serve the admitted patient indoors," reads the order signed by Rabindra Maity, the deputy secretary to the government.
The institution with 50 students in each batch operates out of the premises of North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. The students complained that the college lacked most of the facilities needed for a hospital (see chart).
"The order cites that NBDC will henceforth be called NBDCH and will offer free medicines to inpatients. But even two weeks after the order was issued, the authorities have not taken any initiative to start the distribution of free medicines. The indoor facility is also absent," Pushan Maiti, the secretary of the SFI unit at the NBDCH, said today.
Although the construction of a new building for the college started in January 2008, it is yet to be completed.
At present, there are five dental colleges and hospitals in the state and two of them are in the private sector. The state-run institutions are Rafi Ahmed Dental College and Hospital in Calcutta and Burdwan Dental College and Hospital.
The students have grievances regarding the faculty also. "There is no dedicated pharmacist and a clerical staff member without any technical knowledge is in charge of the drug store. The college has 63 posts of teachers, but only 17 have been filled up. If the institution is to run as a hospital, all the vacancies should be filled up," said Das.
Yesterday, students under the banner of the SFI submitted a memorandum to principal Satyabrata Mukherjee, urging him to introduce the facilities needed to run a full-fledged hospital.
An operation theatre and an X-ray machine are also must for a dental hospital. The NBDCH has an OT but only minor surgeries can be performed there. An X-ray machine allotted to the dental college in 2002 is lying unused for want of technician.
The principal refused to say if the college had been renamed. Mukherjee, however, said that efforts were being made to redress the existing problems.
"The government has released Rs 1 crore for the completion of the new building and said the work will be over in four months. Once it is completed and handed over to us, we shall take necessary steps to start an indoor facility. Six teachers joined the college today and the vacancies have come down to 40 now," he said.
Rabindranath Maity, who issued the order, admitted that there were lack of facilities at the college. "As a preliminary step, we have renamed it as North Bengal Dental College and Hospital. Since they don't have their own infrastructure, we will make provisions for free medicines to be distributed from the counter of North Bengal Medical College and Hospital. We will also request the NBMCH authorities to accommodate 10 beds to start an indoor ward," he said over the phone from Calcutta.
Sushanta Banerjee, the director of medical education, said infrastructure at the college would be augmented. "The dental college has been upgraded to a full fledged teaching institution and hospital. We will take steps to ensure that the college has its own infrastructure and doesn't have to depend on the NBMCH."
There are no comments yet