Conflict situation in a suburban hospital, India: Reasons and measures to minimize

Abstract

Health care has a prominent place in society and as a settingrequired to serve and care for its public and stimulate overallphysical, psychological, and social health. It has a distinctobligation to generate a healthy workplace. Conflict and diversityare intrinsic in health care, and conflict in interdisciplinaryteams is an accepted norm and unescapable. Thus, astudy was conducted to understand reasons for the conflictamongst varied levels of healthcare staff in a 150 bedded multispecialtyhospital in an Indian city. A Survey of 200 respondents(Healthcare and managerial staff) revealed that lack ofappreciation, job stress, and competition within the department(32%) were the major reasons for differences amongstthe employees. Concerning approaches adopted, compromisingand collaborating methods scored more (38% and38.6%, respectively). The results have shown that, in general,managers are familiar with conflict resolution techniques andbelieve in motivating their staff to increase their levels of performanceand retain them with the hospital. However, thereis a need to make the human resource system more robustand accommodating to ensure varied healthcare professionalsfrom different qualification backgrounds and job roles aretreated equitably