PUNE: Until now, the Pune Municipal Corporation had just five specialist doctors (Surgeon, Pathalogist etc) for its hospitals, but with growth in population and increase in number of hospitals – it has decided to increase the posts of specialist doctors to 25 and have begun recruitment for a total of 312 vacant seats including nurses and pharmacists.
While elected members claim that it was a long needed requirement to fill these posts and the administration has only been delaying the recruitments, officials deny the allegation.
Last week during the general body meeting, the elected members had raised a tirade against the civic administration stating that newly built hospitals were lying unused due to shortage of staff.
Bhartiya Janata Party corporator Ujwal Keskar pointed out that the post of head of the health department too has remained vacant for more than 1.5 years and another officer has been given the additional charge for it.
“Right from the head of the department and multi-speciality doctors to nurses and lower rung employees – the health department is gripped with shortage. How can proper services be provided without adequate staff? The procedures for recruitment have been delayed since years,” Keskar said.
He pointed out that the doctors are burdened with work and even the medical officers at the ward level are given work other than that which needs medical expertise.
“They are asked to do solid-waste management related work, which takes up all their time. Then how can they devote time for medical problems,” Keskar questioned.
When contacted, additional head of health department V M Satarkar said that the recruitment procedures have begun and 25 multi-speciality doctors will soon be recruited. However, explained that it isn’t in his power to comment about the vacancy of administrative posts such as head of the department.
“As regards to the medical staff, we got approved 312 new posts of that of specialists, doctors and nurses. Of these, 25 doctors will be multi-specialists and the posts will be filled within six months. Earlier, we had five expert doctors – surgeon, radiologist, pathologist, microbiologist and a paediatrician. The total number of other doctors was 125, 359 nurses and 73 pharmacists. New OPDs (out patient departments) have been started at hospitals like the Kamla Nehru hospital – which increased the demand for doctors, so fresh recruitments are being carried out,” Satarkar said.
