In an attempt to provide medical facilities in remote and mountainous parts of the State, the health department has appointed newly selected 134 dental doctors in the hospitals located there. The Director General Health services Dr Archana Srivastava said that all these doctors would be posted in the Primary health centres.
Interestingly these doctors would also double up as allopathic doctors in the hospitals where there is no doctor.
The Health Advisor to the Uttarakhand Chief Minister, Dr Navin Balooni had recently said that these dental doctors would be provided with some training after which they will be able to provide general treatment to the patients in the hospitals without doctors. It must be written here that a number of people in rural areas are suffering from tooth related problems and this needs immediate treatment.
The experts believe that the health services of Uttarakhand severely affected by acute shortage of doctors would soon get a much needed relief from appointment of these doctors.
It is pertinent to mention here that the out of total 2711 posts of doctors in 993 government health centres of state health services, as much as 1615 posts are vacants.