Railways looking for contract doctors

The Railways are now mulling the idea of hiring doctors on contract to meet requirements as creating new posts took time and failed to get the best talent.

“There are around 400 vacancies now for doctors and we have instructed all the divisional and zonal railway hospitals to hire doctors on contract if need be to meet immediate requirements”, said V K Ramteke, director general of Railway Health Services of the Railway Board, inaugurating the 4th Annual Conference of Indian Railway Orthopaedic Association here.

“We are bullish on developing infrastructure in Railway hospitals as well as improve the quality of service”, he claimed adding that the remuneration of these contractual doctors would be different from the railway pay-scale.

Some of the railway hospitals offered speciality care, like specialised treatment for cancer at Varanasi.

There were over two dozen divisional railway hospitals in the country that employed around 3,000 railway doctors.

Kolkata’s B R Singh Hospital would soon have a Cardiac Center. “The Railway Board had sanctioned around Rs 100 crore for infrastructure development and buying equipment at these hospitals last year.”, Ramteke said.

The Board is waiting for the final Railway budget to decide on this year’s expenditure plans.

Ramteke said the rail administration was keen on developing infrastructure in railway hospitals and Rs 100 crore had been allotted for improving infrastructure and providing new facilities of treatment with new equipments in the railway hospitals recently.

Some railway hospitals will be updated to make them as the state of the art hospitals.

Dr M S Ghosh, ex-medical director of the Orthopaedic Hospital at Howrah, said the railway orthopaedic hospital was one of the best hospitals in the country, a claim also made by K K Srivastava, Additional General Manager of Eastern Railway.

About 100 railway and non-railway practitioners from all over the country were present at the 2-day annual conference which covered subjects like trauma, arthroplasty and arthroscopy.