Health minister Sidharthnath Singh said that the state government has ensured the availability of over 5,500 doctors in state-run hospitals in the last one year and efforts were still on to appoint specialized doctors in hospitals so that quality health care could be available to the people.
“When this government came to power, there was scarcity of over 7500 doctors. We were able to manage services of doctors, including Ayush and appointed them in government hospitals,” the Health minister said in Assembly during Question Hour in lucknow on Monday.
Replying to a question of Masood Akhtar (SP), the minister said that to ensure presence of doctors, the government rejected VRS application of doctors and also increased retirement age of PHMS doctors from 60 to 62 years.
“The government has given re-employment to 275 retired doctors and appointed 185 doctors under NRHM. Besides, 205 doctors were appointed after walk-in interviews. Other than this, Ayush doctors have been sent to state-run hospitals. Our focus is to provide doctors in hospitals,” Singh said.
The minister however admitted that there was scarcity of specialized doctors in hospital and that the government was trying to appoint specialized doctors in CHC and PHCs.
Answering another question, Singh said that government has started a campaign against un-registered nursing homes to ensure that government doctors do not work in these nursing homes. In the last one year, action has been taken against 1233 nursing homes of which registration of 17 nursing homes were cancelled and FIRs were lodged against 686 private nursing homes. Replying to a question by Narendra Verma (SP), the minister said that the government has plans to rope in Income Tax department in identifying government doctors who were working in nursing homes too . Singh, while answering a question of Manoj Pandey (SP), said that 43 trauma centers will be set up across Uttar Pradesh, of which six will be financed by the Union government.