Odisha asked to file status report on doc vacancies

CUTTACK: THE vacant posts of doctors in State-run hospitals has come under judicial scrutiny with the Orissa High Court seeking a status report on the issue. The Court sought the report recently while hearing a PIL filed in April 2018. The State government filed an affidavit in November that year informing the Court that 2,173 posts of assistant surgeons were vacant throughout the State. While the district headquarter hospitals (DHHs) in the State are facing 195 vacant positions of specialists; a total of  319 positions - 38 professor posts, 77 associate professor posts and 204 assistant professor posts - are lying vacant in the three government-run medical and dental colleges, as per the data provided by the State government to the Court then.

The PIL filed by a High Court lawyer Chittaranjan Mohanty, came up for hearing on Friday. Taking note of the case records and fresh submissions by the petitioner, the Court posted the matter to May 28.In its order, the division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice BP Routray said, “An updated status report in the form of an affidavit will be filed by the Special Secretary to the Government of Odisha, Family and Welfare Department updating the current status of vacancies in various government hospitals. The affidavit should be filed by May 5, 2021.”

While seeking the Court’s intervention, Mohanty in his petition had alleged that a large number of sanctioned posts in DHHs and medical college hospitals was not being filled up to serve the interest of private nursing homes and clinics. In its 2018 affidavit, the State government had expressed hope that the vacancies would be filled up with medicos who pass out from the four MCHs set up at Baripada, Balasore, Balangir and Koraput in addition to the MCHs at Cuttack, Burla and Berhampur.