Due to the shortage of doctors in the mountainous districts of Uttarakhand, the primary health centre and district hospitals are in a shambles, due to which the locals are facing major hardship in accessing proper medical care facilities. The efforts of the State Government to provide good medical facility in the mountainous areas by appointing the doctors who have completed their degrees from the two Government medical college of Srinagar Garhwal and Haldwani has come a cropper, because the contact bond doctors after joining the concerned mountainous districts keep abstaining from duties while others have not even cared to join.
The State Government appears to be according little importance to the need for proper medical facilities in the mountainous regions of Uttarakhand in spite of this being among the major demands of the public since the State was created over a decade back.
Pauri is the district and regional headquarter and Pauri district hospital is facing the acute shortage of doctors and technicians. The CT scan machine and other equipments seem to have become white elephants.
Chief Medical Officer Dr AK Singh said only 24 doctors are working in the district out of the sanctioned 191 posts. The 47 contact bond doctors joined duties in the district, but 20 of them are skipping duties even after they joined. Such errant doctors have been, however, issued notices that they either join or pay Rs35 lakhs.
The important posts of eye surgeon, pathologist, radiologist, physician, cardiologist, ENT surgeon remain vacant in the district hospital. Similar is the case with the district female hospital. These posts are lying vacant for five to eight years except the posts of cardiologist and radiologist that are lying vacant for the past 18 months. Residents of the mountainous district of Tehri, Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag keep bearing the brunt of the dragging crunch. This has remained a longstanding problem, but the Government has done little to fill the vacant posts.
The refrain that runs is that the State Government has no specific transfer policy, because of which no female or male doctor wants to work in hospitals located in the mountainous or remote regions of Uttarakhand. They say that the doctors whose clinics are in Dehradun and in other areas in the plains will not like to serve in the remote areas. Residents of the mountainous district state that Uttarakhand should implement a policy akin to that being followed in the neighbouring Himanchal Pradesh where the doctors are periodically transferred after they work in a particular area for a stipulated time. But to do that, the State Government should firm up a policy and go all out to implement it on the ground in the interest of the common men.