Poor leadership cited as reason for SGPGIMS poor performance

Lucknow: The faculty forum of the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences(SGPGIMS), has blamed ‘poor leadership’ for the un-prosperous performance of many clinical departments of the institute.

The forum’s general body meet blamed the lack of rotational leadership to be one of the basic reasons for the meager performance. The forum also claimed that the lack of a uniform policy for reappointment of faculty after retirement /superannuation as a reason for its bad performance, hinting at the two recent reappointments made.

"Current heads of departments are often not accountable to rest of the faculty. No department meetings take place and unilateral decisions are taken. Due to this, needs of most of the faculty (other than the head) on equipment requirement are not met," said Prof Ashok Kumar, the Forum President to the TOI. The meeting was well attended and saw 50 faculty members from various departments of the institute mark their presence at it.

SGPGIMS is an educational institute that imparts postgraduate medical training and a working hospital that provides inexpensive medical care. It is a tertiary care referral hospital that caters to patients referred from not only the whole of Uttar Pradesh, neighboring states such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Orissa, West Bengal, but almost whole of India and neighboring countries including Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and middle Eastern countries. SGPGI is also emerging as a destination for medical tourism.

This autonomous institute is a University established under a constitutional act. Located on a sprawling 700 acres, the institute offers its own degrees, which are duly recognised by the Medical Council of India. The Institute offers DM, MCh, MD, PhD, Post Doctoral Fellowships (PDF) and Post Doctoral Certificate Courses (PDCC), and Senior Residency in various specialties.

The Institute has more than 190 faculty members in 29 academic departments. The academic departments are engaged in teaching, training, patient care and research.The Institute has a hospital-wide computer network with more than 500 computers spread all over the hospital and departments. Internet connections are available in all the departments. All faculty members, residents and students are provided with e-mail facilities. All the patient care activities are computerised, and the institute was the first amongst all government hospitals in India to implement the Oracle-based HIS system in 1997.