Jharkhand revises retirement age for Medical Officers, extends from 65 to 67 years
Dhanbad: Considering the paucity of doctors in the State hospitals and health centres, the Jharkhand Government has revised the retirement age of medical officers/experts of non-teaching cadre and extended it from 65 years to 67 years.The confirmation regarding this came from the notification issued by Additional Chief Secretary of Health (ACS) Arun Kumar Singh. However, the decision in this...
Dhanbad: Considering the paucity of doctors in the State hospitals and health centres, the Jharkhand Government has revised the retirement age of medical officers/experts of non-teaching cadre and extended it from 65 years to 67 years.
The confirmation regarding this came from the notification issued by Additional Chief Secretary of Health (ACS) Arun Kumar Singh. However, the decision in this was taken by the State Cabinet on July 29, 2022.
Referring to the acute shortage of doctors in the hospitals, the ACS in the recent notification mentioned about the hurdles faced by the government for providing proper health services to people.
In this regard, the notification pointed out how the medical officers are retiring every year but the appointments are not being made in the same ratio. This is resulting in the increasing deficiency regarding the number of doctors in the hospitals and State health facilities.
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Last month, in a media report, the Times of India had reported that in order to deal with the shortage of healthcare professionals, the State cabinet had given its nod for increasing the tenure of non-teaching and specialist doctors by two years.
Back in 2015, the previous government under the former Chief Minister Raghubar Das had increased the retirement age of doctors, working as daculties in the medical college hospitals in Jharkhand and also the non-teaching doctors, to 65 years.
As per the latest media report by Lagatar 24, now the State has revised the retirement age of medical officers/experts of non'-teaching cadre again and the ACS Health recently issued a notification in this regard mentioning about increasing the retirement age from 65 years to 67 years.
He said, "Increasing retirement age of present non-teaching cadre doctors and experts would help in ensuring treatment to the patients in the state."
The ACS Health in this context referred to the presence of five medical colleges, 24 district Sadar hospitals, 12 divisional hospitals,188 community health centres, and 385 primary health centres in Jharkhand. He also referred to the fact that even though the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) issues vacancies on a regular basis, required number of doctors are not appearing for these posts. Therefore, increasing the retirement age of present doctors would help dealing with the current requirement.
Meanwhile, the move to increase the retirement age of doctors has been welcomed by the Jharkhand Health Service Association (JHSA), and the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
While commenting on the issue, the State secretary of JHSA, Dr. Bimlesh Kumar Singh told the daily that the association welcomes the decision. However, he also opined that if the medical officers had the option of working for the extended years, it would have been better.
Speaking about this recent development, the IMA president Dr AK Singh and secretary Dr Pradip Kumar Singh appreciated the Government for this move as they opined that increasing the age of retirement would help deal with the present crisis of healthcare professionals in the State.
Last year also, the State Government had increased the retirement age of around doctors. Medical Dialogues had reported last year that considering the acute shortage of medical professionals in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jharkhand Government had approved a one-time extension of services of almost 60 retiring government doctors.
At the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Chief Minister Hemant Soren, a nod was given to the proposal of the Department of Health, Medical Education and Family Welfare. Therefore, the services of those retiring doctors had been extended up to a period of 10 months.
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