Acute shortage of contract doctors hits NHM in State

Young doctors not willing for rural service

May 30, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:57 am IST - THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:

Shortage of young MBBS graduates to serve as duty doctors under the National Health Mission (NHM) on contract in government hospitals is posing a host of new problems for hospital administrators and district programme managers of the NHM in the State.

With the NHM setting up 76 urban primary health centres under the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) in all districts, the shortage has become all the more acute.

Though there are innumerable vacancies for MBBS doctors in all districts to serve on contract under the NHM, as duty doctors in various primary and community health centres (CHCs), and government hospitals, there are no takers. Despite several advertisements calling for doctors to serve under the NHM, the response has been lukewarm. Even those who turn up for interviews refuse to join later on.

“It is not that we do not have adequate number of MBBS graduates in the State. The problem is that none is willing to serve in locations outside the city or to sit in afternoon shifts (2 p.m. to 8 p.m.) or night shifts (8 p.m. to 8 a.m.). Even those doctors we manage to hire often quit at the drop of a hat, leaving us in the lurch,” says a hospital administrator.

It is a constant strain, trying to run the shifts day after day, by shuffling doctors from all health institutions and people in every locality are up in arms as soon as they come to know that there is no doctor, he says.

In capital

Thiruvananthapuram, in particular, has been facing a lot of difficulties on this count because this is one district where 23 CHCs function round-the-clock and which needs a doctor each on a regular basis for both afternoon and night shifts. The district has 12 urban PHCs which are fully functional, each of which require two doctors to man the outpatient clinics in two shifts.

Doctors serving under the NHM are paid Rs.32,000 a month while those under the NUHM get Rs.27,000. Health officials said that salaries are paid regularly and there are no pending arrears.

Kozhikode is another district which has been facing problems because of the rapid dropout rate of doctors.

“Doctors just drop the job and leave even though they are supposed to give us 15 days’ notice. We can cut their salary for 15 days if they leave suddenly but new breed of young doctors, mostly from well-heeled families, do not seem to care. They all want to work in the city on morning shifts and are not willing to serve in urban slums,” a health official in Kozhikode points out.

Health officials point out that earlier, there used to be no shortage of MBBS doctors to serve in PHCS/CHCs as the Compulsory Rural Service (CRS) provision ensured a steady supply of young doctors. CRS is no longer insisted on by the government, following complaints that it was discriminatory as private sector medicos were being spared from it.

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