Punjab CM orders immediate recruitment of 400 nurses and 140 technicians to GMCs to tackle Covid surge

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 23

To strengthen the state’s healthcare capabilities amid the COVID-19 surge, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday ordered immediate recruitment of 400 nurses and 140 technicians to the government medical colleges.

He also directed the department to expedite the medical college projects approved or in progress in the state so that Punjab is not left behind in the development of medical infrastructure.

The chief minister, who also raised the issue during the VC meeting earlier with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said he will be writing soon to the latter seeking a direction to PGI satellite centres and military hospitals in Punjab to provide Covid beds to citizens.

Pre-fabricated structures could be used for this purpose, he stressed.

Virtually reviewing the functioning of the Department of Medical Education and Research, particularly in the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis, the chief minister also approved amendment in rules for re-designating the department faculty members in a time-bound manner to bring them at par with their peers on this count.

On the recruitment drive, the chief minister said of the 900 posts sanctioned after the department restructuring, 400 should be filled immediately in phase 1 with hiring of nurses.

In hiring of technicians, reasonable weightage should be given to those who are already working on contract with Punjab government, he said.

Medical Education Minister OP Soni shared details of the various hospitals and medical colleges that are coming up in Mohali, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala.

Efforts are also being made to establish medical colleges at Malerkotla and Gurdaspur with the approval of the Central government, he said, adding that the satellite centre of PGI will also be commissioned at Sangrur this year while construction of satellite centre of PGI at Ferozepur had started.

Further, approval has been recently received from ICMR New Delhi for setting up of National Institute of Virology at Mohali, he disclosed.

Currently, the state has two universities under the department—Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Faridkot and Guru Ravidas Ayurveda University Hoshiarpur.

In addition, there are three government medical colleges, two government dental colleges, one government ayurvedic college and 12 nursing schools/colleges under the department.

There are six councils for registration of various doctors, pharmacists and nurses.

Pointing out that the department has already been restructured keeping in view latest norms of National Medical Commission, Dental Council of India and Central Council of Indian Medicine, the minister said budget provisions of Rs.550 crore in 2020-21 has been increased to Rs 1008 crore for the current financial year.

Talking about the initiatives undertaken by the department in view of the Covid epidemic over the past one year, the minister said 1,498 isolation beds were provided in three government medical colleges, of which 361 were ICU beds.

Further, seven VRDL labs were now capable of testing 35,000 RT-PCR tests daily and around 54 lakh tests had been conducted so far. Plasma banks had been set up in three medical colleges.

So far, said Soni, more than 14,000 Covid patients had been treated in government medical colleges and an attendant management system had been implemented to report relatives.

Post Covid Multispecialty OPD had been introduced for patients, and arrangements made to look after dialysis patients and pregnant women during the Covid epidemic. A total of 1,095 additional manpower, including technicians, nurses and MTWs, had been engaged.

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