The Chhattisgarh Government is in the process of developing a ‘special package’ for motivating doctors to take up postings in insurgency-hit areas of the State.
The ‘special package’ will have certain facilities besides high salary to be offered to the specialists for their posting in insurgency-hit areas.
“Unlike typical procedure of the appointment, the State Government is trying to bring in more flexibility in the recruitment of doctors for the sensitive areas. The PHFI (Public Health Foundation of India) and UNICEF have been roped into the work with the State Health department for the purpose,” said Dr Kamalpreet Singh, Director Health Services.
He said the package had been specially tailored for doctors which will not only provide a handsome salary but also ensure other facilities such as helping doctors in their further studies, better accommodation, and future appointments. The package will be provided for a period of upto 2 to 3 years, Singh said.
He said that the drafting of the plan will commence within a month.
It may be recalled that previous attempts by Chhattisgarh Government to appoint doctors in the insurgency-hit areas failed to achieve much result following which the step to launch a ‘special package’ for doctors has been taken .
The recruitment process was initiated as many as six times during the last two years for doctors for insurgency-hit areas, but only 10 to 15 per cent vacancies were filled, officials informed.
The Government had also announced Rs1 lakh plus salary per month package to them, but these efforts also went in vain.
Already, as per the Health department’s records, there is an acute shortage of doctors in the worst insurgency-hit Bastar division where only 77 doctors of Class I and II category were posted in district hospitals against the sanctioned posts of 202.
The shortage of doctors could be gauged from the following data — Bastar district hospital has 20 doctors against the sanctioned posts of 36, Kanker has 21 against 33, Dantewada has 14 against 33, Kondagaon has 8 against 27, Narayanpur 6 against 24, Bijapur 5 against 21, and Sukma has 3 against 28. As per the records, in Jagdalpur headquarters, the only government medical college in Bastar region, 163 posts of I and II class doctors out of 270 are lying vacant.
The district hospitals of other tribal-dominated regions which are partially hit by insurgency also lack sufficient doctors. The Gariaband district hospital has 7 doctors against sanctioned posts of 27, Balrampur has 6 against 27, Surajpur 7 against 27, and Jashpur 16 against 27.
The condition is worse in primary health centres and community health centres in remote areas of the insurgency-affected regions, where there are hardly any health care personnel posted.
Even at the package of Rs1.25 lakh salary (per month) being offered, doctors were not available for insurgency hit regions, according to Dr Kamalpreet Singh said. Only a few appointments of paediatricians were made in Gariaband and Kondgaon, he said. Under the new package, the PHFI will look over the task of arranging doctors either from the State or outside for these areas, he said .
Initially, the focus will only be to get specialists in Gynaecology, Anaesthesia, Paediatrics, and Pathology, Dr Singh said.