The health institutions being run by the government in Haryana are facing an acute shortage of medical officers and specialist doctors causing major inconvenience to patients visiting hospitals for the treatment and for some time now, there is a continuous demand to fill the vacant posts of doctors, technical staff, nurses and other staff in the department in a bid to ensure the timely treatment for the needy patients. Even in the Assembly, citing an acute shortage of doctors, MLAs from ruling and opposition factions are continuously raising the issue of health services being affected and patients not getting timely treatment.
However, the government is continuously saying that vacant posts of health experts in the health department will be filled soon . In this series, it came to light that a sizable chunk of the sanctioned posts are lying vacant in Haryana resulting in a delay in treatment of the patients and sometimes due to this, the patients even lose their lives . A lack of health facilities and health infrastructure puts a heavy burden on the pockets of patients while approaching private hospitals.
The official information made available by the Health Department has revealed that out of the total sanctioned 5522 posts, as many as 4016 posts are filled while remaining more than 1500 posts are lying vacant which constitutes around 27 percent of the total posts, in the state adding to the woes of the patients seeking treatment in government-run hospitals. Further, the statistics depicted that the number of sanctioned posts of Medical Officers in Haryana is 4260, out of which 1135 posts are vacant and out of these, 167 posts of Medical Officers are filled by the National Health Mission (NHM).
Apart from aforesaid, out of the total sanctioned 374 posts of Senior Medical Officer s, as many as 144 posts are lying vacant i.e. 38 percent. Amid this, it is pertinent to mention that in the last 9 years, 608 medical officers holding Post Graduate Diploma and Degree have been appointed in Haryana. Due to vacancies of doctors lying vacant on such a large scale, people, especially the people from the economically poor section from rural areas, have to face big problems.
The official information also revealed that Haryana has recruited doctors and medical experts three to four times in different years since Financial Year 2017-18. In FY 2017-18, applications were invited for recruitment to 662 posts and out of these, 554 posts were filled. After this, recruitment was completed in 2020 om 954 posts due to which health services were strengthened to some extent. After this, advertisement was issued for 1252 posts in 2022 and recruitment was done for a total of 990 posts. Even after all these recruitments, more than 1500 posts of doctors and health experts are vacant which is a matter of serious concern.
While reacting to severe shortage of doctors, Anil Vij who holds the portfolio of the Health Department said that the process of filling the vacant posts is going on and approval has been received from the CM for setting up a special cadre of doctors. Further he said that following the completion of necessary formalities, the special cadre will come into existence. Amid the increasing trend of specialist doctors leaving government services in Haryana over the past few years, the state government constituted a three-member committee last year to study and evaluate the factors responsible for the large number of resignations.
In wake of an acute shortage of the doctors, a demand pertaining to the setting up of special cadre continues to surface and in this series, government doctors in Haryana had called a strike on December 29 last year with their demands for formation of specialist cadre which was further postponed following an assurance from the government. It was the second time in a week that government doctors associated with the Haryana Civil Medical Services Association (HCMS), the body representing government doctors in Haryana, had called for a strike. Apart from the formation of a specialist cadre for doctors, their demands include reduction in the bond amount for postgraduate courses and a dynamic assured career progression scheme at par with that of central government doctors. However, at present approval has been received from the CM regarding this and it is expected that a special cadre of doctors will be established soon.
Amid this, an increasing trend of doctor with particular expertise leaving government services has been witnessed in Haryana over the past few years. One of the senior health department officials on anonymity said that there are only a dozen radiologists in more than 20 civil hospitals of the state. A radiologist gets a salary of around Rs 4-5 lakh per month in private hospitals against only Rs one lakh in the government hospitals Similarly, other specialist doctors in government hospitals get less salary than those in private hospitals. Apart from this, being a part of other administrative and legal work and a lack of facilities in government health institutions and due to these reasons emerge as factors forcing the doctors to quit their job in government hospitals.
It is noteworthy that the number of various specialists like gynecologists, anesthesiologists, physicians and pediatricians in Haryana is less than half of the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) recommendations. As per IPHS recommendations, community health centers (CHCs) should have a specialist in surgery, obstetrics, and paediatrics as well as an anesthetist and public health program manager and an eye surgeon at every four CHCs.