Healthcare hit amid shortage of super-specialists in state

Ravinder Sood

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Palampur, February 23

The public healthcare system in the state has been adversely hit due to the shortage of super-specialist doctors. The state government has failed to attract super-specialist doctors to the government sector in the absence of proper pay and perks.

A number of doctors who opted for the state health services and joined two top medical colleges of the state in the past two years left the job after a few months due to the alleged lack of cordial working conditions, lack of separate cadre and no proper support from the higher authorities.

In the past one year, six super specialists — four from IGMC, Shimla, and two from Tanda medical colleges — have resigned and joined private hospitals. These doctors had joined on contract basis with the commitment from the state government that their services would be regularised in due course and they would be posted as Assistant Professor. However, because of official bottlenecks, posts could not be advertised and the government failed to regularise their services, forcing them to leave the job in their home state and move to corporate hospitals.

A doctor while talking to The Tribune said there was a huge pay disparity in government and private sector, which was the major reason why most doctors did not want to join the government sector.

Super-specialists in the government sector are being paid around Rs 1.5 lakh (to regular assistant professor). In the private sector, they get around Rs 3-4 lakh per month, depending upon their specialisation. He said a super-specialist continued his studies up to the age of 35 years but the state government had no reorganisation and most of the super-specialty departments were attached with the medicine department, making matters worse due to lack of independent functioning.

Though the state has developed huge infrastructure along with separate super-specialty blocks in the two medical colleges at Tanda and the IGMC, Shimla, most of the super-specialty departments are headless with no faculty and buildings are lying vacant today. To date, the state government has failed to start cardio surgery in Tanda Medical College in the absence of Cath Lab.

Notably, amid the lack of proper super-specialty services, patients have to go to Chandigarh or other towns of Punjab and Haryana, which causes inconvenience to patients.

A super-specialist said the government should either pay work-based incentives or should hire super-specialists on contract basis to attract doctors in the government sector.

No senior officer of the state government was ready to comment on the situation.