Bhubaneswar: The state government Monday admitted in the Assembly that it has been crippling with massive shortage of qualified medical professionals in different positions in the state as data suggests huge vacancies in the health sector.
A written statement submitted by the state government before the Assembly claimed that there is an 80 per cent shortage of staff nurses against the requirement. The statistics submitted before the House claimed that the state has only 4,529 staff nurses as against a requirement of 22,337 – a vacancy of 80 per cent.
The case of doctors is also an issue for the state to worry about. According to the statement of the government, against the total requirement of 7,449 doctors, the state has a vacancy of 1,231 (17 per cent) doctors in the state.
The high vacancy of other qualified medical staff is evident from the Assembly data. The data, which was tabled by the state Health Minister Naba Kishore Das, claimed that the state has a total vacancy of 70 per cent of lab technicians, 59 per cent shortage of health workers and others.
The matter of shortage of doctors was also raised in the Assembly by several MLAs who complained of shortage of doctors and other staff at the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and Community Health Centres (CHCs) in their areas due to which many are forced to move to urban areas for treatment.
The health minister said that as per the Census of 2011, Odisha is home to 4.19 crore population which mandated of having 1,315 PHCs and 328 CHCs while currently the state has a total of 1,287 PHCs and 374 CHCs.