State Health Minister Surendra Singh Negi said the State Government was committed to improve the dental services and efforts were being made to station dental specialists at Primary Health Centre (CHC) level. While addressing a convention of Provincial Dental Services association here on Monday Negi regretted the fact that the dental services had not achieved the expected level of excellence in Uttarakhand and most of the Government hospitals are limited to offering dental consultancy and tooth extraction services only.
The Health Minister assured the association that the long standing demand of restructuring of the dental cadre would soon be done and added the State Government was committed to improve the condition of dental clinics in Government hospitals but due to fund constraints the desired results were not achieved.
The Health Minister blamed the Central Government for ‘drastically’ reducing the central funding to the State. The MlA and Parliamentary Secretary Raj Kumar said the coronation hospital in Dehradun should be developed as special dental clinic with modern facilities; he argued that this arrangement would also relieve patient load on ever crowded Doon hospital.
Speaking on the occasion the State president of the association, Dr Sunil Agarwal said the dental surgeons were disappointed due to disparity in the service rules when compared with other cadres due to which they get less promotional avenues.He highlighted poor working conditions and lack of modern equipment as constraints for dental surgeons of the state. Agarwal demanded that provision of separate budget should be made for dental cadre and benefit of Departmental Assured Career Progression (DACP) should be extended to all doctors. The secretary of association Dr Tanuja Pal said that against the sanctioned posts of 105 only 58 dentists are working in the state health services.
The Health Minister felicitated many dental surgeons for their exemplary services on the occasion. The programe was attended by Director Health services Dr Kusum Narriyal, Additional Director (Dental) Dr JS Rana, and Dr KP Sharma.
