Medical Superintendent Dr Balram Pandit.

St. Giles Hospital in Suva is currently under the pump as they are operating at 50 percent staff capacity due to mass staff movement and migration.

Medical Superintendent Dr Balram Pandit says they are in need of competent staff to fill the vacant positions as their patient admissions continue to increase.

He says there is also a high burnout rate among staff at the psychiatric hospital.

Dr Pandit adds they are currently compromising on some of the services they used to offer previously.

“It does compromise on services as well. So the kind of community services or outreach clinics that we were doing before, like weekly clinics for many places, we are not able to do that frequently. In those clinics at St. Giles, there were also some units that were fully functional since we are notable for running them at that capacity. So some of the one or two units have closed.”

Dr Pandit says talks are underway with the Health Ministry regarding increasing bed capacities and recruiting competent staff.