Central team finds flaws in R'than health system

At a time when Rajasthan government is about to initiate organ transplant surgeries in the state, a team from the Union government has found severe flaws in the state’s health and medical infrastructure.

The team of 8th Common Review Mission (CRM) of the Union government has raised strong objections on the number of posts lying vacant in the health sector at various levels.

It recommended hiring of doctors with immediate effect, increasing salary and incentives of the medical staff and drafting a transparent transfer policy for the doctors. 

A Health Department official said the team was very concerned about the high number of vacancies at all levels, including those of specialist doctors.

The team in its recommendations has categorically mentioned that due to insufficient number of lab technicians and pharmacists, free drugs and free diagnosis schemes were being run with the help of other employees in several areas.

In July, the state government had announced to fill 73,500 vacant posts of various cadres in the Health Department. Four months ago, a total of 3,000 posts of doctors, 42,660 posts of paramedical staff and many other administrative posts were lying vacant.

Not sharing information
However, when asked about the present status, none of the officials was ready to share information.

They claimed that the recruitment process is in full swing. Sources said CRM team has also pointed out the reasons for the delay in recruitments.

The team mentioned that inter-district and inter-cadre variations in salaries and increments were leading to frequent agitations and doctors have reservation in working in several parts of the state. 

Apart from hiring the doctors and paramedical staff through walk-in interviews, the team has strongly recommended special incentives to medical staff working in tribal areas, a well-defined human resource policy, performance appraisal of medical employees, a grievances redressal mechanism for doctors and a transparent transfer policy.

The team highly appreciated several initiatives by the state government and local schemes launched in health and medical segment.

It includes chief minister free diagnosis scheme, immunisation services, Janani Suraksha Yojna, optimum utilisation of 108 ambulance services, initiatives taken under national vector-borne disease control programme, national leprosy eradication programme, tuberculosis and AIDS control programme and health care financing.

Dr Damodar Bachani, Union Ministry for Health led the 15 members CRM team and reviewed programmes under National Health Mission. The team comprised officials from UNICEF, SAATHI, Planning Commission, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, WHO and visited various health centres in Rajasthan.