More than half of sanctioned doctors’ posts have been lying vacant in Odisha at the time of COVID-19 pandemic, says information obtained by exercise of the RTI Act.
The State has 8,719 sanctioned doctors’ posts which are filled up by regular, ad hoc and contractual doctors. However, there were no doctors in 4,493 positions accounting for 51.53%.
According to information obtained by Pradip Pradhan, an RTI activist, only 3,682 regular doctors, 51 ad hoc medics, 407 contractual doctors and 80 doctors recruited through District Mineral Fund were working as usual by April this year.
“Tribal dominated districts, which have poor track record in infant mortality and malnutrition, are worst-affected as 62% of doctors’ posts in those districts were lying vacant,” said Mr. Pradhan.
He said 260 doctors were absconding for years together whereas the government was clueless in tracing them and initiating action against them. “It is alleged that most of these absentee doctors are working in private hospitals and the administration is aware of it,” charged Mr. Pradhan.
‘Ganjam worst hit’
The RTI activist said Ganjam, which emerged as the epicentre of the pandemic and the home district of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, had the highest numbers of vacancies with 348 doctors (62%) found to be not in positions.
Recently, the government faced criticism from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders as it had to shift more than 100 doctors from southern and western Odisha districts to Ganjam to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.
The government was also forced to increase retirement age of doctors from 62 to 65 which was seen as a desperate attempt to retain doctors with current pandemic not going to end soon.
Faced with crisis of large- scale doctor’s vacancies and weak infrastructure in government health systems, the Naveen Patnaik government had to initially rope in private players to set up COVID-19 hospitals to deal with exigencies during the pandemic.
