Health department vacancies to be filled by September 15

NEW DELHI: Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday set a deadline of September 15 for filling up of all vacancies in state-run hospitals on contract basis.

Patients can’t suffer because of shortage of staff due to the long time being taken by agencies to hire on a permanent basis, the CM said. The vacancies include pharmacists, nursing staff, radiographers, lab assistants, technicians, operation theatre assistants, physiotherapists, sanitary inspectors, among others.

Kejriwal, who held a review meeting on the shortage of staff in the health department, said the health sector has been one of the top priorities of the AAP government. “However, the shortage of staff has been ailing the sector for long as hiring could not be done due to several reasons,” the government said in a statement.

As per rough estimates, there are about 2,000 vacant posts in state-run hospitals. Last year, Kejriwal had written to the lieutenant government to fill up the vacancies on an urgent basis.

“Today, we have a situation in many Delhi government hospitals where we have ventilators and machines (X-ray, CT scan, MRI) but no staff to operate them. In many hospitals, there are long queues outside medicine dispensing counters. More counters cannot be opened due to lack of pharmacists,” Kejriwal had said in the letter.

The CM had also criticised the decision of hiring retired employees in the interim against the vacant posts saying there weren’t enough such people. However, the LG’s office clarified saying the proposal to hire them was moved by the health department.