The medical health and family welfare department of Uttarakhand which is reeling under an acute shortage of medical officers and specialist doctors is now pinning hopes on the guest doctors from other states to bring some succour to the people of mountainous areas. The State Government has given its clearance to the proposal of the department to implement the Specialist Guest doctor scheme in the State.
The officiating Director General (DG) of Health Services Dr lK Gusain said that the scheme intends to take the services of the doctors who are planning to visit the state for religious, tourism or personal purposes.
The department would depute a nodal officer for the scheme who would be responsible for publishing advertisements in the leading newspapers of the country for the scheme. These specialist doctors would be requested to visit the State at least for a period of two weeks during which they have to give at least 4 days in a week at designated health care centre.
The department will bear the cost of travelling, boarding and lodging of these doctors in addition to this a remuneration of Rs 1000 per day would be offered to these specialists. Gusain said that it would be ensured that payment of these doctors would be done during the course of their stay by the respective Chief Medical Officers (CMO).
The medical, health and family welfare department want to bridge a huge gap in the availability of specialist doctors in the state by implementing this scheme. The departmental data suggest that out of 126 sanctioned posts of Surgeons 84 are lying vacant, similarly 99 posts of physicians, 57 posts of orthopedic surgeons, 98 posts of radiologists, 86 posts of pathologists, 110 posts of gynecologists, 37 posts of cardiologists and 30 posts of dermatologists are lying vacant. To add to the woes of the department a majority of these specialist doctors are posted in the districts like Dehradun and Haridwar.