Mamata Banerjee fiddles with her phone at Town Hall on Wednesday. (Amit Datta)

After the Hippocratic oath, a Mamata Banerjee vow.

The chief minister on Wednesday gave a pep talk laced with a lesson in ethics to doctors and nurses who will fill a fraction of the 2,000 vacancies in health facilities across the state.

“Don’t run after money…. Offer your services with a smile,” Mamata told the 700-strong gathering at the orientation programme for medical officers and auxiliary nurses-cum-midwives at the Town Hall.

In return, she promised to provide a “reformed and neutral” work environment driven by youth at all government health care institutions. “I am overhauling the entire system. I am involving the new generation in this. Only the new generation can work neutrally,” the chief minister said.

Mamata had spoken in the same vein during an interaction with senior government doctors at the Town Hall on June 13. On that occasion, she advised the government health care fraternity to stop clamouring for infrastructure and funds and get back to basics like keeping hospitals clean, being punctual and treating patients with a smile.

The chief minister repeated the last bit of advice at Wednesday’s programme. “The greatest reward (for a health care professional) is the smile on a patient’s face after he or she gets well,” she said.

Mamata promised those who hadn’t yet received their appointment letters that they would do so within 15 days. The appointments will be on ad hoc basis for a period of 11 months with scope for an extension.

Many of the recruits attending the orientation programme complained about red tape in the appointment process. “Doctors who went for interviews in July got their appointment letters only this month. I came to know about this programme barely five days ago,” said Arijit Das, who has a post-graduate diploma in orthopaedics from Calcutta Medical College and Hospital.

Tuhin Kar, who completed his MBBS last March from Burdwan Medical College and Hospital, said a counselling session would have helped the recruits.

Nurse Karuna Sarkar, who trained at the Beleghata Infectious Diseases Hospital till January, said she was delighted to hear that she would receive her appointment letter soon.

Health department officials couldn’t remember another instance of a chief minister addressing an orientation programme for new health care professionals in Bengal. Mamata, of course, has chosen to be different right from the start. The highlights of her first couple of weeks in office included surprise visits to state-run hospitals in town.

The chief minister said the irony of health care in Bengal was that professionals from the state were helping improve medical treatment in the US and Europe while standards were dipping in the land of their birth. “We can’t do well because we don’t have the infrastructure,” she pointed out.

So how does the government intend correcting this anomaly?

Mamata said 50,000 new nursing posts would be created over the next couple of years along with nursing schools and colleges.

Health department officials said 435 medical officers and post-graduate trainees and 458 nurses had been invited to Wednesday’s orientation programme. All the nurses turned up, but around 130 doctors didn’t.