New Delhi: Govt to create Zone wise pool of specialists

New Delhi : Accounting for the shortage of specialists in the capital, and their highly skewed distribution depending on their respective areas, the Delhi government is all set to create a zone-wise pool of specialist doctors.

The purpose is to ensure efficient utilization of manpower, facilitating the availability of specialist doctors in cases of emergencies.

The idea proposes that instead of being restricted in terms of posting to one hospital, specialists would now be posted in one specialty-care centre and provide services to smaller hospitals in case of an emergency.

“There are hospitals that have a full-fledged department with 10 or more doctors but they do not get many cases in a year,” health minister Satyendar Jain told HT. "This is waste of resources and raises the per person cost of treatment," he said.

Each of Delhi’s five zones – north, east, west, south and central—will have one main hospital with all specialties, the specialty resource centre and the other government hospitals. In case of an emergency in a hospital, a specialty doctor from the speciality resource centre will be called upon.“…if they need for example a north orthopaedic doctor for an emergency case, they can borrow it from the pool of doctors of the zone,” said Jain.

Five major hospitals in each district of the capital have been identified  where the patient shall be sent to In a non-emergency situations, These include Lok Nayak, Guru Teg Bahadur, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital and another upcoming hospital.

For super-specialty care such as cardiac care and neurosurgery, the government will rely on private hospitals reports HT.