The Government keeps launching several health services and programmes to provide free healthcare to all people in Odisha, but lack of doctors and other supporting staff have made all their efforts futile.
In the backward tribal district of Keonjhar where health services are a bare necessity, many of the PHCs and even the District Headquarters Hospital lack doctors and other heath staffers like nurses, health workers and technical personnel.
Out of approved 275 posts of staff nurses in the district, only 86 are working which accounts to a 69 per cent vacancy. Similarly out of 18 approved radiographer posts only five are working. Again 10 lab technician posts are lying vacant since long out of 36 approved posts.
Five posts of pharmacists, 32 male health worker and 57 female health worker posts are vacant in the district. In such a situation, the doctors if available in the health centres are finding it difficult to work without necessary health staff.
“When 83 posts of doctor out of 229 approved posts in the district are vacant, one can understand how the health programmes in the district are running,” alleged for,er Keonjhar MLA Mohan Majhi.
Meanwhile, the Keonjhar Progressive Citizens Forum has demanded immediate filling of the posts.