Fill up vacancies at AIIMS, other state-run hospitals: Parliamentary panel tells Health Ministry

New Delhi: In a bid to ensure an adequate healthcare workforce for delivering healthcare facilities, a parliamentary panel has raised concerns over the filling up of vacant posts at various hospitals under the Health Ministry.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health in its 140th report tabled in Rajya Sabha asked Health Ministry to submit the response of the cadres controlling authorities towards filling up vacant posts.

The panel has expressed concern saying it must have bearing on the administrative efficiency and overall functioning of these facilities. 

It is incumbent on the ministry to take up the matter of filling up the vacant posts with respective cadre controlling authorities — Department of Personnel and Training, Department of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

Also Read:Uttarakhand Govt considering to hike salaries of specialist doctors to ease shortage

The ministry should then apprise the committee about the response of those cadre controlling authorities towards filling up such vacancies, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health in its 140th report tabled in Rajya Sabha said on Thursday. The committee noted that despite necessary instructions given by the ministry to AIIMS, New Delhi, to fill up vacant posts, a total of 404 group-A medical posts are vacant there. Similarly, 26.81 percent of group-B and 20.73 percent of group-C posts are also vacant at the institute that must have a bearing on delivery of health care facilities. The panel urged the AIIMS management and the ministry to take concrete steps for filling up the vacant posts without further delay.

The panel also recommended that the ministry must give green signal to the Master Plan of AIIMS, New Delhi, so that the cherished goal of developing the institute into a world-class medical university by March, 2024, can be achieved without failure. The panel noted that vacancies in various AIIMS across the country is a matter of concern.

Even though the recruitment exercise is planned by respective management of the institutes, the ministry cannot shrug off its responsibility from monitoring the progress of recruitment process, the panel said in its report.

The committee does not approve the ministry's plea that posts are filled up to the range of service already operational in the institute.

Rather the reverse proposition is correct/true — many departments in various AIIMS remain in-operational due to vacant faculty and non-faculty staff, the panel noted. It urged the ministry to ensure an adequate healthcare workforce not only for delivering the assured health services but for imparting education and undertaking research projects to understand the biology of various diseases.

The committee also pointed out that the ministry, in its action taken note, has not informed about the steps taken to fill up 283 vacant posts of the total 4,126 sanctioned posts at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and the RML Hospital, and furnished old status of vacancy as on February 1, 2022, that was already in its possession.

The committee urged Union Health Ministry to monitor the recruitment process in ABVIMS and Dr. RML Hospital.

It also recommended that the renovation work of labour room at the Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) and Smt SK hospital must be completed within 2022-23. The committee takes into account the status of the recruitment process for filling up of various posts at the Safdarjung Hospital and Vardhman Mahavir Medical College that in fact retard the functioning of the various departments of Institute. In order to express the access of healthcare facilities, it is pertinent to fill up the vacant posts at the earliest. The panel recommends that the ministry chalk out specific time frame to complete the recruitment process so that vacant posts are filled up without delay, it added.

Also Read:Shortage of Orthopaedic Implants: AIIMS Delhi to partner with Govt subsidiary HLL Lifecare