Table 4 Changes in key HRH in Chhattisgarh’s public facilities from September 2018 to August 2021, current gaps and potential solutions
Cadre | Changes in HRH in public facilities | Current gaps and potential strategies |
|---|---|---|
Specialists | • The number of specialist doctors increased by 203% with addition of 424 specialists • The above increase was due to two main reasons: (a) there was progress in completing the due promotions (b) flexible salaries were implemented by districts | • Despite the impressive increase in number of specialists, a considerable gap remained with 66% vacancies • The recent change in policy allowing direct entry of PG doctors in specialist cadre may help in attracting more specialists in future • The success in improving availability of specialists so far has been largely limited to district hospital level. The approach of using flexible salaries to attract specialists can be extended to get more specialists at CHC level also. The short training courses for UG doctors can also help in task sharing. Funds were secured for a PG diploma course in family medicine and its implementation can help in multi-skilling of UG doctors |
UG doctors | • The number of UG doctors increased by 51% with addition of 717 doctors. It brought down the vacancies dramatically from 43 to 15%. This could be achieved by the department by increasing its management capacity to handle large recruitment drives | • Continuous skill building of recruited doctors will be needed |
Staff Nurses | The number of Staff Nurses increased by 47% with addition of 1808 nurses. The quality assurance drive resulted in around one-fourth of the private schools being asked to improve quality standards. Eventually, 13 schools (around 10% of total) who did not improve were barred from taking new admissions | • Continuous skill building of recruited nurses will be needed • Further recruitment drives are needed for filling the new contractual posts |
CHOs: | The number of CHOs increased manifold with addition of 1098 CHOs. Implementing the regional quotas helped some of the remote districts. In-service training was initiated for CHOs joining the HWCs and most of them were trained by SHRC on standard treatment protocols for primary healthcare services. The production capacity was increased to 1600 CHOs per year. Medical Colleges have been roped in to enhance quality of training | • The state lost opportunity to train another 1400 CHOs by 2021 due to litigations. Alternative strategies need to be found for quickly recruiting CHOs in large numbers |