Insurgency infested Bastar division is continuing to grapple with the problem of lack of sufficient doctors in Government hospitals despite a consistent Chhattisgarh Government drive to beef up their numbers.
The matter has come to a stage where patients now prefer to find a private physician rather than visiting a government hospital devoid of sufficient doctors.
There are also seven districts of the Bastar division which does not have a single lady doctor, to treat female patients who often end up in private nursing homes to seek treatment. “Not only lady doctors, the region is facing the problem of shortage of all types of doctors. No one is interested to go to Bastar,” said Commissioner (Health) Pratap Singh.
As acknowledged by Singh, the MBBS doctors are reluctant to go to the remote areas of the division. Taking note of this, the State Government had decided to appoint BDS doctors at block level but this also did not seem to have worked. As many as 78 BDS doctors have been appointed on contractual basis and even appointed at the block level. However, they hardly go to their place of duty citing various reasons. Most of them say that the conditions are discouraging and most of the primary health centers do not have dental chairs. It is inconvenient to treat people without dental chairs and other essential tools.
Sources said that the doctors initially enter the government health service by getting appointment in Bastar region and thereafter manage to get transfer to other places. Due to this practice, Bastar region is facing the problem of unavailability of doctors for long time.
Even the high salary offer to the tune of lakhs of rupees has no takers. “We have been desperately trying to appoint more and more doctors in the division. But the situation has not improved as desired. like other states, we cannot even go for outsourcing due to insurgency problems in the region,” added Singh.