All taluk hospitals should install MRI and dialysis equipment, and technicians should be appointed to provide these services, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said at a review meeting of the health department here on Tuesday.
He also instructed officials to fill vacancies of healthcare staff, and to consider increasing the salaries of NHM staff who have relatively low salaries. Under NHM, specialist doctors are short by 52%, MBBS doctors by 31% and nursing staff by 18%. Siddaramaiah noted that grants under NHM were not being spent on time either.
Given the delays in medicine procurement, he said that health department should submit a proposal to the finance department to call tenders every two years. Currently, the contract period for medicine supply is one year.
“Medicine procurement runs into 30 packages for 700 drugs. Usually it takes four months for one tender to get finalised after due process, and a certain percentage of tenders don’t get closed in the first bid either. Our argument was that, if so much time goes into procurement, the contract should stand for two years. So CM said that finance department should examine this,” health commissioner D Randeep told DH.
Siddaramaiah also said that the MD at Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Ltd (KSMSCL) should serve for at least two years, as MDs tend to shift from this position frequently. Over the past year, five different MDs were appointed at KSMSCL.
He also asked officials to ensure that doctors at primary and community health centres stay in their allotted quarters so that their services are available whenever required.
He gave three months to department officials to fix issues, adding that action would be taken otherwise.
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