There is no research report from Kerala studying the relationship between quality of patient care and the available human resources.

The aim of the present study was to find out the patient load in the hospital, human resources availability, deaths in hospitals and the relationships within them.

 

The number of OP registrations, beds provided and admissions made during every financial year from 1997 April 1st to 2006 March 31st were gathered from hospital records. The number of doctors, nurses and nursing assistants were gathered from the attendance register and pay rolls. Number of deaths in the hospital during every study year was collected from the hospital registers. The gathered data was analyzed and graphs generated.

There was noticeable rise in the number of OP attendance from 1997-1998 to 2006-2007. The beds, doctors, nurses, nursing assistants and admissions also increased, but it was small. During the same period, the death rates remained almost same with minor fluctuations. The increases in the number of various parameters didn’t synchronize with any other parameter and the mortality was not influenced by any of them. The rise in OP number was noticeably high.

 

The system appeared to be maintaining the quality of work and standard in care, adapting to a setting of crunching resources. This could be the result of committed and skilled work of staff at different levels which remain unrecognized. Need for establishing a referral system and following norms in post creations are highlighted.