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| Orissa High Court |
Cuttack, July 17: Orissa High Court has sought details on the number of government hospitals and doctors posted along with available infrastructure from the state government.
A fortnight ago, the high court set a 12-week deadline for the government to fill up all the sanctioned posts of doctors.
The two-judge bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra said: “A detailed statement of counter shall be filed by the Orissa government, represented by secretary of the health and family welfare department indicating therein how many government hospitals, including the public health centres, are running in the state and how many posts of doctors are lying vacant and what are the facilities and infrastructure provided in the hospitals.”
The direction for submission of the details within three weeks was issued after registering a fresh PIL in response to a letter petition last week. One D.V.N. Murty, a student of University Law College, had filed the letter petition seeking judicial intervention against alleged failure of the Orissa government to provide proper and adequate health services in government-run hospitals and dispensaries.
The law student had, in his letter petition, said: “Medical negligence by the authorities has been a practice for many years and there has been no significant improvement in the overall healthcare facilities in state-run hospitals and dispensaries.”
While disposing of a PIL on June 27, the same bench had directed the Orissa government to fill up all the vacant posts of allopathic, homeopathic and ayurvedic doctors and provide infrastructure to all public health centres, community health centres and dispensaries across Orissa.
The high court had fixed the 12-week deadline for filling up of the posts after additional secretary of the health and family welfare department Ananda Kumar Mishra had filed an affidavit admitting that 1,085 of the 4,258 sanctioned posts of allopathic doctors in Orissa were lying vacant. Of the 594 sanctioned posts of homeopathic doctors, 151 were lying vacant and of the 520 sanctioned posts of ayurvedic doctors, 94 were lying vacant.
To meet the shortfall “steps have been taken to recruit 140 medical officers as assistant surgeons on adhoc basis. Over and above, contractual appointments have also been given to the suitable candidates, including the retired doctors,” the affidavit had stated.
Advocate Dilip Mohapatra had filed the PIL on shortage of doctors and consequent inadequacy of the health department to combat epidemic situations following outbreak of cholera in different parts of Orissa in September last year.