Biometric attendance in all MCHs, hospitals in Odisha soon
BHUBANESWAR: All faculty, tutors and senior residents in medical colleges and doctors in government hospitals will now have to mark their attendance by Aadhaar enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS) in Odisha. The state government will soon introduce the bio-metric attendance system in all hospitals to check absenteeism among faculty, doctors, nurses and other staff. Health secretary Shalini Pandit on Thursday said the biometric attendance system will be implemented in all medical colleges and hospitals and district headquarters hospitals from the beginning of the next financial year in the first phase. “Subsequently, it will be implemented in all primary and community health centres besides sub-divisional hospitals in the next phase. The system will inculcate punctuality and discipline,” she said.
The decision of implementing AEBAS in medical colleges came following the direction of the National Medical Commission (NMC), which in October last year, had directed all private and government medical institutions to strictly implement biometric attendance. The state government, however, decided to implement it in all hospitals along with the medical colleges as increasing absenteeism among doctors and other paramedical staff was affecting healthcare and academic functions. Once the attendance is recorded, the NMC will regularly monitor the attendance database of the medical colleges, which will help improve the medical education system.
Since all staff in hospitals will have to mark their attendance twice - when they come and when they leave after work, the government can also monitor their duty hours. Briefing on the 2023-24 budget, the health secretary said the state government will recruit 5,000 doctors and 9,000 staff nurses this year to ensure that every PHC and CHC in the state have an MBBS doctor by 2024 end. While the public health budget is up by 27 per cent - from Rs 12,624 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 16,048 crore, the highest allocation of Rs 3,003 crore has been proposed for health infrastructure. Apart from the rise in allocations for several schemes, the financial assistance to poor and destitute for last rites under Harishchandra Sahayata has been increased from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 for rural areas and from Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,000 for urban areas, Pandit added.