489 doctors appointed as medical officers yet to report for duty, says govt

JAIPUR: Following an RTI revelation that more than 40% of MBBS doctors who cleared the examination for medical officers at government hospitals, did not join duty, now health department has come up with a list of 489 doctors who are not coming on duties for certain period of time.

Among these government doctors, there are at least 350 MBBS doctors, who are posted on designation of medical officers.

Majority of these doctors are posted at community health centres and primary health centres in rural areas.

The RTI had revealed that just less than half of MBBS doctors selected for government jobs did not join the duties. Now, 350 doctors who had joined the duties have not taken the government job serious and remain absent for a long time. The situation is alarming as the health department has now decided to collect information about their whereabouts.

Health department has written to all chief medical health officers (CMHO) of all districts and principal medical officers of all district hospitals to send details of doctors such as their name, post, date of birth, for how many days they have not been coming to hospitals on duties and action taken by them against such doctors.

“We have a list of such doctors not coming to hospitals for some time. We have directed our officials in the state to send details of such doctors immediately,” said Dr RS Chhipi, additional director (gazetted), health department.

According to the health department sources, the total posts of medical officers (MBBS doctors) in the state are 6,000. But, there are atleast 1,400 posts are lying vacant. Now, the health department has released a list of 489 doctors who are missing, is brought out the sordid state of healthcare services in the state.

Majority of the doctors, who are not coming to hospitals for a long time, got the posting in 2006, 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2015.

Besides, there are 139 doctors with post-graduation qualification such as gynaecology, paediatrics, anaesthesia, surgery, ENT, orthopaedics and radiology.

In March, the state government had increased the retirement age of doctors from 62 to 65 to retain them, as there is shortage of doctors.

According to the government’s reply on an RTI filed by one Nikita Jangid, the state government has announced recruitments for medical officers four times since September 2014. In 2016, the state government had selected doctors on 1,170 posts in 2016. Of these, 579 joined the duty while 591 chose not to. After a gap of two years, the health department this month announced recruitment of MBBS doctors on 894 posts.