Ridiculous Decisions: Part Two

Here is another one more example of a ridiculous administrative decision. In the Radiology department of my hospital there was a ten year long problem of technicians not taking radiographs on Sunday as there was a dispute between two different unions. The patients were suffering quite a lot. The resident doctors were made to take the radiographs on Sundays. On one particular Sunday there was an argument between a radiology technicians and a resident doctor and the resident doctor was badly bashed up by the technician. There was a lot of disturbance. A police complaint was lodged. The Dean of the hospital was under tremendous pressure to resolve the issue peacefully. This was where she made a mistake. Instead of solving the problem the right way, she asked the deputy dean to ask senior consultants from clinical departments to be present round the clock on Sunday in the emergency room to see that any radiology technicians did not beat up any resident doctors. In reality this was actually the job to be done by security personnel and police. The Dean’s presumption was that the presence of senior consultants would deter the technicians from being offensive. It was a just a presumption, with no substance in it. She probably had no trust in radiology consultants to control the technicians (which they had anyway failed to do for 10 years). No provision was made for protection of the additional consultants, who were physically much less fit than the technicians who could attack them, and resident doctors who had proved to be unable to defend themselves. This was an absolutely ridiculous decision. The funny part of that was that the Dean would not sign that order. She verbally asked the deputy dean to take out that order. The deputy dean took out the order and sent it to us without his signature. I called him and asked what we were supposed to on that Sunday. He advised me to ask the Dean. I called the Dean, who got very angry and asked me to ask the deputy dean. Finally three of our consultants spent the Sunday in the emergency room doing nothing. Highly trained personnel were asked to do something they had no means of doing, for which they were not compensated in any way, and which gave them an immense degree of dissatisfaction. That Dean was known to avoid responsibility for any decision by asking subordinates to sign the concerned documents. The deputy dean did not want to be the scapegoat, and sent out an order without any signature. It was unfortunate that such things happened in an institute like ours, and such a person headed the institute and made these things happen.