Amid threat posed by dreaded Coronavirus (COVID-19) with the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring the disease as pandemic, the health department of Uttarakhand is boasting about its preparedness to combat the disease. The department is claiming that it has got the necessary manpower and infrastructure needed to fight the disease which has so far claimed two lives in India. Contrary to the claims of the department, the situation of health services in Uttarakhand remains pathetic. The data of health department stands in a marked contrast the tall claims of the department. The data exhibited in the website of the medical health and family welfare department shows that almost 50 percent of the posts of medical officers (1253 posts vacant out of total 2531 posts) are vacant. Similarly 359 posts of staff nurses out of sanctioned 1117 posts are vacant. The situation is worse when one looks at the data of the specialist doctors as there are only 411 such doctors working in the state against sanctioned posts of 1068. The state health department has only 19 physicians in its cadre out of 131 sanctioned posts. It is pertinent to mention here that the physicians are the basic requirement of any health system to tackle a disease like Coronavirus.
The health department has a total of 112 ventilators in different government hospitals which are much less than required even in normal situations.
The shortage of doctors and the equipment becomes more acute when one looks at the district wise availability of doctors. Mountainous districts like Pauri, Tehri, Bageshwar, Uttarkashi and Chamoli are more affected by the shortage of Doctors.
Pauri which is the home district of chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat who also holds the health portfolio is one of the worst sufferers due to the shortage of doctors. Incidentally this district which is also home of chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath, former Chief Minister Major General (Retd) Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri and union cabinet minister Ramesh Pokhriyal “Nishank” has 343 sanctioned posts of doctors out of which only 167 are filled. Similarly more than 70 percent of posts of specialist doctors are vacant here. Uttarkashi district which is the biggest district of the state in terms of area has only one physician and has not even a single ventilator.