Doctors wanted

Bhubaneswar, June 20: Cutting across party lines, members in the Assembly today expressed concern over large-scale vacancy of doctors in the backward areas, especially in undivided Koraput, Balangir and Kalahandi (KBK) districts.

Health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak admitted that there was a shortage of doctors and inflow of patients in government hospitals had gone up after introduction of 108 emergency ambulance service.

As the doctors are not willing to serve backward areas, especially KBK regions, the government has implemented a package of incentives to attract the doctors serve in these areas. The package provides a special allowance of Rs 8,000 per month to doctors serving in rural areas of the KBK region and other backward areas. Doctors serving in the district headquarters hospitals in the backward areas too get a monthly additional allowance of Rs 4,000, Nayak told the Assembly.

He said that the government has decided to make the first posting of government doctors in the KBK and other backward regions mandatory. The government is also planning to provide more incentives to doctors serving in these areas, he added.

Congress member Tara Prasad Bahinipati drew the attention of the government to large scale vacancy of doctors in the undivided Koraput district, which forces poor tribals to seek medical help in Andhra Pradesh.

BJP leader K.V. Singh Deo said fresh medical graduates were not willing to join government service to serve backward areas due to poor pay package offered by the state government vis-a-vis neighbouring states.

Sambalpur legislator Raseswari Panigrahi, who is a doctor, drew attention of the sorry state of affairs at VSS Medical College and Hospital, Samabalpur district headquarters hospital and city maternity hospital. She said surgery at the district headquarters hospital had stopped as there was no anaesthetist there. Similarly, there was no gynaecologist at the maternity hospital.