Lucknow: An increasing number of doctors and paramedical staff of Kalyan Singh Super Speciality Cancer Institute (KSSSCI) are leaving, severely affecting patient care services.The institute receives about 400 patients daily, but to attend them there are only 42 specialist doctors against the sanctioned post of 121. About 28 doctors have left the institute in the last two years because of pay disparities.Further, 58 permanent non-teaching employees, including 49 nursing officers, have also quit.The crisis has hit patient care. Take the case of Sunita Devi, a breast cancer patient from Sultanpur, who came for chemotherapy. After hours of waiting, she was told her consultation had been postponed. “My treatment has to follow a schedule. Every delay makes me anxious,” she said.Rajesh Verma, whose father is undergoing treatment for lung cancer, said, “Sometimes we wait the entire day and leave without treatment because of the crisis.”Medical superintendent (MS), Dr Varun Vijay said the institute currently has 315 beds, eight operation theatres, a digital PET-CT, a 3-Tesla MRI, a 128-slice CT scanner, and two linear accelerators for radiotherapy. “However, this infrastructure will be effective only when we have adequate hands,” he added.Dr Vijay pointed out that the demand for cancer care is rising. OPD attendance rose from 55,394 (between Jan 2025 and Jun 2025) to 72,209 (from Jan 2026 to Jun 2026), an increase of 30.4%. In the same corresponding period, major surgeries increased from 1,020 to 1,167 (14.4% increase) and admissions climbed from 5,718 to 6,364 (11.3% increase).According to KSSSCI faculty association, several key departments have no faculty despite sanctioned posts. Other departments are functioning with temporary contractual faculty members.The recruitment in KSSSCI, established in 2016, happened in 2017. At that time, faculty was promised pay on a par with SGPGIMS. In 2018, SGPGIMS adopted 7th pay commission recommendations, but no revision was done at KSSSCI due to a discrepancy in service rule book. Some doctors approached court in 2023 for resolving the issue, where the case is still pending.Subsequently, the association members said, the state govt issued two orders in Dec 2023. One stated that employees appointed thereafter would receive 7th pay commission benefits, while another directed status quo for existing faculty as the matter was sub judice. This created two pay structures in the institute, resulting in doctors and employees getting lesser pay moving to greener pastures.
