BHUBANESWAR: The state government’s tall claims over appointing more and more doctors to galvanise health care at the grassroots notwithstanding, Odisha continues to languish with a shortfall of whopping 5771 doctors at the primary health centres (PHCs).
The state requires 6688 doctors in PHCs but has only 1,326 sanctioned posts of whom as high as 409 are lying vacant. There are 1094 doctors in position against the sanctioned strength of 1427 in district hospitals and 347 doctors against 567 posts in sub-divisional hospitals in the State.
Similarly, 1276 posts in community health centres (CHCs) are vacant against the sanctioned strength of 1529. However, to tide over the crisis the state has 94 general duty medical officers (GDMOs) and 2188 AYUSH doctors on contract under National Health Mission (NHM) scheme.
The state has 6688 sub-centres, 1288 PHCs, 377 CHCs, 33 sub-divisional hospitals and 32 district headquarters hospitals.
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Replying to a question during the Budget Session in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Ashwini Kumar Choubey said public health and hospitals being a state subject, the primary responsibility to ensure availability of doctors including rural areas, lies with the state governments.
“The Centre has been providing financial and technical support under NHM to strengthen health care systems, including support for recruitment of doctors on contractual basis, based on the requirements proposed in Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) within the overall resource envelope,” he stated in a written reply.
Under NHM, the Minister informed that states are encouraged to adopt flexible norms for engaging specialist doctors for public health facilities.
The norms include various mechanisms for ‘contracting in’ and ‘contracting out’ of specialist services, methods of engaging specialists outside the government system for service delivery at public facilities, offering negotiable salaries to attract specialists.
Despite Central assistance Odisha continued to lag behind. As per the Rural Health Statistics - 2018, the rural health care infrastructure in the State is not sufficient to meet the current population norm.
With a population of 4,19,74,218 (as per 2011 Census), Odisha has one sub-centre for 5,229 people, one PHC for 27,151 persons and one CHC covers a population of 92,760.
The Minister stated that the Centre has been providing performance-based incentives, allowance for hard to reach areas, accommodation and transport facilities in rural and remote areas besides sponsoring training programme for engaged humans resources to address the shortage of doctors in public health facilities.