50% posts in Himachal's Sirmaur health centres vacant

Tribune News Service

Ambika Sharma

Solan, January 15

Around 50 per cent posts of health workers are lying vacant in public health centres (PHCs), community health centres (CHCs), civil hospitals (CHs) and health sub-centres of the Sir-maur district.

Of the 761 sanctioned posts, 370 are lying vacant. These also include posts of medical officers, paramedical staff as well as other health workers. While vacancies are less pronounced in urban areas, the health institutions in rural areas with scant staff are reportedly in a deplorable condition.

Government apathy to the fore

• Five posts of doctor each are vacant in Paonta Sahib and Dadahu, besides vacancies of paramedical staff.
• Four of eight posts of doctor vacant in the CHC, Shillai. No radiographer is available there.
• The Ronhat centre has no dental surgeon or pharmacist.
• The Sangrah CHC has seven employees against 21 posts while in PHC, Koti Dhiman, three of the four posts are vacant.

Five posts of doctor each are vacant in Paonta Sahib and Dadahu, besides the vacancies paramedical staffers.

Three posts of doctor and a few paramedical staff are vacant in Rajgarh, the home turf of BJP state president Suresh Kashyap. The PHC, Sataun, have no doctor.

Remote areas of Shillai block have less than 50 per cent of sanctioned staff. Four of the eight posts of doctor are vacant in the CHC, Shillai. No radiographer is available and of 38 sanctioned posts, 23 are vacant.

The Ronhat health centre has no dental surgeon, pharmacist or staff nurse. The situation is no different in health institutes in Sangrah block. The CHC, Sangrah, has seven staffers against 21 sanctioned posts while at the PHC, Koti Dhiman, has three of the four posts vacant.

Shillai MLA Harshwardhan Chauhan, who had raised the issue in the Assembly during the recent session, says new institutes are being opened by poaching staff from the existing ones. “Instead of strengthening existing institutes and providing adequate staff by filling vacancies, the state government is weakening them,” he alleged.

He said, “The Chief Minister have announced the opening of new institutes but no new staff has been deployed there. The situation at the Paonta Sahib hospital is deplorable, as the ultrasound machine is being run in an ad-hoc manner, while the sub-centres in rural areas are non-functional in the absence of staff.”

Meanwhile, residents rue that they have failed to get quality health services. Baldev, a Ronhat resident, says, “We have to go to Paonta Sahib for treatment as health institutes in rural areas lack staff and facilities like X-ray.”

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