The Provincial Medical Services Association (PMSA) demand to increase the number of government doctors’ posts have hit a barrier as the health department has specified that instead of increasing the sanctioned posts of doctors its priority should be to fill up vacancies of doctors.

On Thursday, a PMSA delegation had handed over a memorandum to health minister Jai Pratap Singh demanding increase in the number of sanctioned posts of the government doctors from 18,000 to 33,000. The office bearers of the association told the minister that in 2004, during cadre review of the Provincial Medical Services (PMS), the sanctioned posts of the government doctors was 18,000.

PMSA president Dr Sachin Vaishya, said that the population of the state has increased to 22 crore and there is a necessity to review the sanctioned posts to implement the norms fixed under Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS) for primary health centres, community health centres and district hospitals.

The doctors are already working under tremendous pressure in government hospitals. Besides examining the patients, they are also supposed to do other duties entrusted by the department. Government doctors provides full-time service in the hospitals and therefore it is essential to increase the sanctioned posts of doctors to provide quality service to patients.

A health department officer said that out of the 18,000 sanctioned posts of PMS doctor’s 6,000 were lying vacant, responding to the PMSA demand. The health department have hired 1,700 doctors on contract to fill up the vacant posts. The department has insisted the UP Public Service Commission to fill up the sanctioned posts on a priority basis, however the posts are still vacant due to shortage of qualified doctors in the state.

He further said that their priority is to fill up the vacant posts than increasing the sanctioned posts of doctors. The department has decided to issue notice to 280 government doctors who have not joined service even after receiving the appointment letter or are absent after the joining date. If the doctors fail to join duty then the department will terminate their service and declare the posts vacant.

The dilemma of the department is that if the strength of the sanctioned posts was increased, the number of vacant posts will too increase. The combo of government and private hospitals is providing sufficient service to patients across the state and under the Ayushman Bharat scheme, patients can get treatment in private hospitals too.

The PMSA had also urged the state government to improve the working conditions to motivate doctors to join the services. Dr Vaishya said that the doctors posted in the districts should be provided with housing facility, security and facilities provided to other government servants. Also, the PMSA had urged the state government to ensure that government doctors get promotion on schedule.mu