Govt is searching for missing doctors

DAINIK NATION BUREAU

Hundreds of government doctors belonging to the PMHS cadre continue to be on government’s roll but  missing since long.  The Department of Health and Family Welfare has launched an exercise to account for doctors who either went missing on the day they were supposed to join duties or after they worked for a couple of days. Due to this reason on record there is enough manpower on paper but in reality they post is running vacant.

“We have initiated an exercise to look for such doctors and we have found out 48 of them. Their number is bound to increase as most of these doctors did not report for work soon after their appointment, while others worked for one or two days. Since then they have been missing,” said Nitesh Jha, Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare.

Concerned at the number of doctors who continued to be accounted as being on the roll call of the government but in reality had not been working for the last few years, the department has decided to take stock of the situation so that these posts could be advertised as vacant. In the official records of the state government these so-called missing doctors were still on the rolls, thereby giving a distorted picture of the actual vacant posts of doctors in the department.

According to the department, against the sanctioned strength of 2,715 posts for doctor (Provincial Medical and Health Services-PMHS cadre), around 1,069 posts are said to be filled. Out of these over 100 posts continue to be occupied by doctors who have been missing.

Most of the appointments were made during 2007-2008, but none of the doctors reported for work. There were others who reported for work for a few days and since then have been absent. All these doctors belong to the specialists and non- specialist cadre (only MBBS).

Significantly, official said the government was keen to tackle the problem as soon as possible so that vacancies could be filled. Our priority is to fill posts, provide doctors so that the health facilities in remote areas are up and running. Whatever official action is needed would be initiated.