Cuttack, April 4: The issue of vacancy in posts of doctors across Odisha is back in Orissa High Court.

Nine months ago, the high court had fixed a 12-week deadline for the Odisha government to fill up all the sanctioned posts of allopathic, homoeopathic and ayurvedic doctors lying vacant across the state. However, a contempt petition was filed yesterday alleging non-compliance of the order.

Vacant posts of doctors across Odisha had come under judicial scrutiny in September 2010 after a PIL on inadequacy of the health department to combat cholera outbreak was filed in the high court.

Subsequently, the health and family welfare department’s additional secretary, Ananda Kumar Mishra, had filed an affidavit in the court admitting that 1,085 of the 4,258 sanctioned posts of allopathic doctors were lying vacant.

Of the 594 sanctioned posts of homoeopathic doctors, 151 were lying vacant. Of the 520 sanctioned posts of ayurvedic doctors, 94 were lying vacant. Besides, 203 of the 1,476 posts of Ayush doctors sanctioned under the National Rural Health Mission were also lying vacant.

The government had assured that “all possible steps are being taken to fill up the vacancies so as to make the patient care more efficient in the hospitals of the state.”

“Steps are being taken to fill the posts of allopathic medical officer, homoeopathy medical officer, ayurvedic medical officer and other contractual posts,” the government had assured.

Taking note of it, the division bench of chief justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra disposed of the PIL on June 27, 2011, with an order that stated: “It will be just and proper for the Odisha government to see the selection process is expeditiously carried out and select the eligible candidates in all the vacant posts in accordance with recruitment rules and fill them up to serve the people better.”

“The said process must be completed within a period of twelve weeks and thereafter compliance report must be submitted to the court. Necessary infrastructure may also be provided to all the dispensaries and primary health centres in the state including supplying of stethoscope,” the order said. Dillip Kumar Mohapatra, a member of the high court bar council who had filed the PIL, has now again turned to the high court with a contempt petition seeking “appropriate action for non-compliance of the order”.

“To meet the shortfall of doctors, the state government had then assured that steps were being taken to recruit assistant surgeons on ad hoc basis. Also, 140 medical officers are going to be posted as assistant surgeons on ad hoc basis,” Mohapatra said.