Bhubaneswar: Local level health institutions have been suffering from a massive dearth of quality doctors, data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claimed. Government statistics have it that more than 100 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the state are struggling to get doctors.
The Rural Health Statistics, 2018 claimed that Odisha has a total of 1288 PHCs. However, there is not even a single PHC which has four or more doctors. Hinting at the massive dearth of doctors at ground level, the data claimed that 110 such PHCs do not have a single doctor to render services.
According to a report, only two out of 1288 PHCs have three doctors to serve. The data hinted that at most of the PHCs single doctors handle patients. The total number of PHCs which are headed by single doctors stood at the highest of 585. On the other hand, there are 578 such centres which have two doctors to render services.
This is in contrast to many other states which have not even a single PHC without doctors. For example Bihar has 1899 PHCs and not a single PHC is without a doctor. Moreover it has 439 such PHCs which have four or more than four doctors. Similar is the stories in Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Goa and Kerala.
Public health and hospitals are state subjects. All administrative and personnel matters, including that of recruitment of doctors at Primary Health Centres (PHCs) lie with states. However, under the National Health Mission (NHM), financial and technical support is provided to states to strengthen their healthcare systems including support for recruitment of doctors on a contractual basis based on the requirements posed by them in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs).