Chandigarh, October 26: Punjab Health Department is set to witness a major boost with the “biggest” lot of 558 new doctors ready to join after a gap of more than 10 years.
Announcing this, the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Brahm Mohindra on Thursday said that the recruitment process has been over and the doctors are available for the posting.
“These newly recruited doctors, including specialists, would be posted across the State at the Community Health Centres (CHC), Primary Health Centres (PHC) and District Hospitals as per the requisition of the Civil Surgeons,” said Mohindra while presiding over the special meeting of the Civil Surgeons convened to evaluate the staff position, OPD, Medicines, infrastructure at all government hospitals of the state.
Mohindra said that this is the major milestone achieved by the Health Department in fulfilling the promises made to the public by Congress party in its election manifesto. “Despite the financial constraints, the Health Department has recruited the biggest lot of doctors in one go, after the gap of 10 years,” he said.
The Minister asked the Civil Surgeons to put up the requisition for the posting of doctors at district, sub-divisional, CHC and PHC level hospitals. He also assured that the posting of the doctors would be made on rational grounds, and the preference would be given to make posting of the doctors near their home towns which would ensure their competence, dedication and sincerity towards service.
Mohindra announced that the State Government has set priority to strengthen the Universal Health Scheme to provide indoor health cover to 45 lakh families of the state. He asked the Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Satish Chandra to identify 10 district level hospitals which would be upgraded to provide tertiary healthcare services.
Expressing concern over the adverse reports that buildings belonging to health department are lying vacant since long in some of the districts, the Minister instructed the Civil Surgeons to make inventory of all such unused buildings so as to ensure optimum use of this crucial infrastructure to improve the health services.
The Minister, during the meeting, also reviewed the availability of medicine stock. In view of the coming festive season, the Minister instructed the Civil Surgeons to be well prepared to tackle any eventuality and to ensure the adequate stock of all generic medicines.
The Minister also took stock of the status of the availability of testing machinery at the Civil Hospitals like ultrasound machines, X-ray machines, CB-NAAT and other machines. Some of the Civil Surgeons pointed out the dearth of such machines while some of Civil Surgeons raised the issue of outdated machinery.
Mohindra asked the ACS to make inventory on the demand of such testing machines at the Civil Hospitals and put up the case for the purchase of such machines.
Mohindra applauded the exemplary work of Doctors who worked 24X7 to provide the much needed medical care and treatment to the victims of Amritsar Rail Tragedy at crucial hour.
Source Daily Pioneer
