Kendrapada, despite being Health Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak’s home district, cuts a sorry figure in terms of providing proper health services, with 41 out of 118 posts of doctors lying vacant in various hospitals.
The district headquarters hospital (DHH) alone accounts for six vacant doctor posts. The DHH is the last resort of the people after the patients are returned at the primary health centre (PHC) and community health centre (CHC) levels, but crippled as it is owing to lack of sufficient number of doctors, it has failed to live up to the expectations of the common people these days. On the contrary, the private hospitals are now increasingly getting dependable and fleecing the poor people like anything.
A major problem with the DHH is that two medicine specialist posts are vacant since long. Besides, one surgery specialist post, two ophthalmology doctor posts and posts of a pathologist and a radiologist are lying vacant for last several months in the medical.
The hospital is no better in infrastructure as well. Many patients lie on the floor due to non- availability beds. The vicinity of the hospital is littered with medical wastes, while patients are using the vacant places to defecate in the hospital premises.
The vacancy in post of doctors too has hit the PHCs and CHCs in the rural belt of the district. Due to absence of doctors in several PHCs or CHCs, patients are treated by the para medical staff.
In Aul CHC and several PHCs under the block, as many as nine out of 11 doctor posts are vacant where as in Rajnagar eight posts are vacant in different medicals and in Mahakalapada four doctor posts are vacant. Recently the Government has appointed nine doctors on contractual basis, while 21 doctors have been appointed on adhoc basis in the district but that seem to be insufficient.
The district headquarters hospital badly needs medicine specialists. Even as we have written to the higher authorities several times to take proactive action, the problem has not been solved as yet,” said CDMO Jnanindra Kumar Tripathy.
When contacted, Health Minister Nayak stated that not just for Kendrapada but across the State, shortage of doctors has been a major problem. He assured that steps would be taken to fill the posts of medicine specialists soon in the DHH.