CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Monday expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of a time-bound plan for filling up the vacant doctor posts in State-run hospitals and medical facilities. The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice B P Routray directed the Additional Chief Secretary Department of Health and Family Welfare to inform the Court by way of an affidavit, the exact number of vacancies in each of the posts and what time-bound steps are proposed to be taken for filling them.
The affidavit to be filed by September 27, will also indicate the status of recommendations made by the OPSC for filling up the vacant posts. “The OPSC had made some recommendations for many of these posts on April 30, 2021. The progress in this regard in the last three months is not known,” the bench observed.
A lawyer Chittaranjan Mohanty had filed a PIL in April 2018 seeking its intervention for filing up the sanctioned posts in the government medical college hospitals, district headquarter hospitals (DHHs) and other periphery hospitals.
In the affidavit, Health and Family Welfare department Special Secretary (Medical Services) Dr Dinabandhu Panda had stated that nearly 1,695 posts are lying vacant in the Odisha Medical and Health Services (OMHS) cadre out of the sanctioned strength of 8,719. Requisitions have been sent to the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) for recruitment of 2,452 posts. As far as the medical colleges are concerned, 1,661 faculty are in position with 337 posts vacant.