Only God knows why doctors are not joining government jobs: Minister

Health minister Kalicharan Saraf expressed helplessness on Saturday over the department’s failure to recruit doctors to fill vacant posts.

There are 11,000 posts of government doctors, of which 3500 are vacant. The government recently advertised for 800 vacant posts, but has not got responses, Saraf said, interacting with the press at a meeting here.

“God only knows why doctors are not joining government jobs,” he said. He added that many doctors posted in remote areas did not join duty.

Saraf said the government had not been successful in filling the vacancies despite offering good remuneration to doctors.

Outlining the BJP government’s achievements, Saraf said steps had been taken to strengthen the healthcare system in the state. The BJP government has in its five-year tenure spent Rs 46,082 crore on the health sector while the previous Congress government had spent only Rs 16,923 crore, he said.

Saraf said the state had got adequate budget from the Centre for health services and on that basis the state government was going to start medical colleges in Bharatpur, Churu, Pali, Dungarpur and Bhilwara. The government is also making efforts to start medical colleges soon in Barmer, Sikar and Dholpur, he said.

The minister said the government had appointed 20,000 para medical staff in four years and was hiring 7000 nursing staff.

Saraf said the infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and neonatal death rate had shown improvement. The IMR in 2013 was 57 which has now declined to 45 while the neonatal death rate has gone down from 32 to 28.

He said the BJP government had taken forward the free medicine and free medical test schemes started by the Congress government. “We removed gaps in the schemes and improved their quality,” he said.

“The Congress spent Rs 691 crore on the scheme (free medicine) from 2011 to 2013. In our first three years, from 2014-2017, medicines worth Rs 1129 crore were distributed. From 2017 to February 2018, medicines worth Rs 424 crore were given. A total of 27.89 crore people have benefitted from the scheme.”

He said around 20 lakh people had benefitted from the Bhamashah Swasthya Bima Yojana, on which the government had spent Rs 1200 crore.

“We have opened Adarsh Primary Health Centres across the state without discriminating on political grounds. These PHCs have been opened in BJP and Congress areas,” said Saraf.

Of the 600 centres that were to be made Adarsh PHCs, 285 have been completed in the first phase and the rest will soon be developed, he said.

JAIPUR: