Bhubaneswar: Government hospitals in Odisha are now facing acute shortage of doctors as 60 per cent of the sanctioned posts are lying vacant.

This was revealed by health and Family Welfare (H&FW) Minister Mukesh Mahaling in the Odisha Assembly today.

The state has altogether 15,774 sanctioned posts of doctor. Out of this, a total of 9,503 doctor posts are lying vacant, said the Minister.

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“Altogether 6,271 doctors are now working in government hospitals across Odisha. Of them, 5,003 are permanent doctors while 1,135 have been appointed on contractual basis. This apart, the state has 19 ad-hoc doctors while 110 doctors have been appointed under the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) and four under corpus fund,” elaborated the Health Minister.  

OPSC has been asked to fill up 5,248 vacant posts of doctor   

The state government has asked the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) to fill up as many as 5,248 vacant posts of doctor in the state at the earliest, added the Minister.

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It is worth mentioning here that two new government medical colleges and hospitals, one at Phulbani and another at Talcher, were made functional this year. With this, the total number of government medical colleges in Odisha went up to 14.

At present, the state has around 1,900 MBBS seats in government medical colleges, reports said.