At a time when the Manohar lal Khattar Government is claiming to improve healthcare services during more than two and a half years of its tenure in Haryana, as many as 933 posts of medical officers are still lying vacant in the state.
As per the data with Haryana Health Department, Jind district has maximum number of vacant posts of medical officers (MOs) which stood at 134 followed by 115 vacant posts of MOs lying vacant in Bhiwani, 102 in Hisar, 74 in Karnal, 71 in Sonepat and 68 in Kaithal.
Sirsa district has least vacant posts of seven MOs followed by 10 in Rewari district. Among other districts, Ambala has 36 vacant posts of MOs, Fatehabad has 61, Jhajjar 47, Kurukshetra 34, Mewat 35, Narnaul 25, Panipat 26, Palwal 28, Rohtal 25 and Yamunanagar 35.
Struggling with the shortage of doctors in the state, Haryana Government had recently approved the proposal to de-reserve and carry forward 241 posts of HCMS doctors meant for SC and ESM categories on account of non-availability of applicants and fill up vacant posts of medical officers. The non-availability of applicants belonging to these categories was stated to be one of the main reasons for the shortage of doctors in Haryana.
“To fill vacant posts of MOs, the State Government has advertised 662 posts of medical officers to be recruited on regular basis. This includes 426 general category, SC-99, ex-servicemen 34, EBP -50 among other categories,” said a senior official of Health Department.
The recruitments would be made for available vacancies of MOs relate to districts of Ambala, Bhiwani, Fatehabad, Hisar, Jind, Jhajjar, Karnal, Kaithal, Kurukshetra, Narnaul, Panipat, Rewari, Rohtak, Sonepat, Sirsa, Mewat, palwal and Yamunanagar, he said.
last month, the State Government had re-employed as many as 81 doctors who had retired after attaining the age of 58 years. The Government had last year increased the retirement age of doctors from 58 years to 65 years for performing only clinical duties.
To meet the shortage of doctors, Health Minister Anil Vij had recently taken a serious note of the doctors who had been on leave since long without permission. The Minister had asked such doctors to either join their duty without any delay or resign.
He had also warned of taking a legal action against those who would neither join nor resign and after dismissing from service such erring doctors, afresh recruitment could be conducted.
According to the government’s statistics, the state has a sanctioned strength of around 3250 doctors. More than 250 doctors are either on long leave or are absent for the past some years without submitting their resignation to the Health Department.