Government hospitals face ‘exodus’ of specialists

Varinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 21

The hospitals run by the Punjab Health Department have been facing a sort of “exodus” of specialists, such as gynaecologists, paediatricians, anaesthetists and radiologists, to the private sector for past four-five years.

The department has selected 100 government hospitals at district and subdivision level for providing “quality healthcare” by deploying specialists. However, nearly half of these hospitals have to do without one or the other specialist.

In a bid to overcome the crippling shortage of paediatricians, the department has now mooted a proposal to recruit post-graduate diploma holders as specialists.

Earlier, the government was reluctant to accord “specialist” status to diploma holders. The Health Department proposal is likely to be cleared in the next Cabinet meeting. The government has already taken the posts of specialists out of purview of the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) to attract maximum number of specialists.

“We hold interviews for the posts of specialist every month so that we can deploy them at at the earliest. At present, our focus is mainly on two issues — drug de-addiction and recruiting adequate number of specialists,” said Vikas Garg, Special Principal Secretary (Health), Punjab.

Just 70 paediatricians are serving in government hospitals against 140 sanctioned posts. Only 20 radiology specialists are available against 64 sanctioned posts. The number of gynaecologists is 126 against 156 sanctioned posts, while 75 anaesthetists are on roll against 109 sanctioned posts.

An investigation by The Tribune to ascertain the reason why specialists were not attracted to otherwise “lucrative” government jobs revealed that post-graduates like gynaecologists, paediatrician, anaesthetists and radiologists got much better perks, service conditions and freedom in the private sector. The “meagre” starting salary of Rs 62,000 of a specialist in the government sector as against around Rs 1.5 lakh in the private sector was a major factor contributing towards “exodus” of specialists.