Patiala Health department in staff crunch
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
Aam admi party (AAP) has won the recently held Punjab assembly elections with a clandestine victory on mainly two-three major agendas. One of their major agenda on which the AAP won elections is to streamline the health services in Punjab on the pattern of Delhi.
Patiala is one of the major health centres of Punjab having Govt Rajindra Hospital, Govt Medical College. The city is nowadays facing a peculiar situation as the health department is facing a staff crunch. The posts of regular civil surgeon, district health officer, senior medical officer are vacant in Patiala city and other health centres in Patiala district, giving a dent to the newly formed government’s agenda to improve health services.
The post of civil surgeon fall vacant on march 31,2022 after the retirement of Dr Prince Sodhi. The health department gave the officiating charge of civil surgeon to Dr Jatinder Kansal.
The post of district health officer (DHO) is also vacant after the suspension of Dr Shelly Jately, since first week of February 2022. The charge of DHO Patiala is given to DHO Mohali. The suspension order is said to have come couple of days after the DHO had raided a prominent baker in Patiala city and collected food samples from there.
The post of Senior Medical Officer (SMO), Community Health centre (CHC) Tripuri is also vacant after the promotion of Dr Vikas who is promoted as assistant civil surgeon and the officiating charge is given to Dr Sanjay Bansal.
Likewise the post of regular SMO, CHC Badshahpur is also not filled and the officiating charge is given to another doctor.
When contacted the director health services (DHS), Punjab Dr Gurinder Bir Singh he said “ we are in a process to fill the vacant posts of civil surgeon , district health officer Patiala, SMO’s in coming days.”
April 17,2022