Administrative work not enough, examine patients, senior doctors in Punjab told

Vishav Bharti

Chandigarh, May 19

The Health Department has told senior government doctors who are exclusively doing administrative work that they must do clinical work too.

It has been an unsaid precedent in Punjab for decades that when a doctor gets promoted as a Senior Medical Officer, he stops doing clinical work and confines himself to administrative work. Health Minister Dr Vijay Singla has asked all Deputy Medical Superintendents, Assistant Civil Surgeons, District Immunisation Officers, District Family Planning Officers and Deputy District Health Officers to examine patients. As per the order, issued by the Health Services Director, all senior doctors will examine patients for three hours every day from 8 am to 11 am.

The outcome of the decision will be that around 200 more doctors will render services in state hospitals.

As per a report of the Health Department prepared and submitted to the previous government, 3,218 posts in 27 categories of employees are vacant in Punjab’s hospitals.

In 1981, one government doctor catered to 3,800 people in Punjab. In 2022, there is one doctor for around 8,000. In 1981, there were around 4,400 government doctors in the state to serve 1.67-crore population. While in 2022, when the population is more than double, the number of doctors has remained almost same.