Acute shortage of healthcare professionals in hospitals: Study

Ninety nine percent of Indian hospitals are dealing with acute shortage of healthcare professionals and severe challenges in acquiring the right talent, a study revealed here Saturday.

The study, Healthcare Talent Issues, conducted to map the talent crunch in the healthcare delivery industry, stated that in 70 percent of the hospitals surveyed the positions of doctors have remained vacant for at least 2-6 months.

Over 88 percent of the hospitals in India take 2-8 months to fill senior positions and at least 15 days to 3 months to fill junior level positions.

"Hospitals have a tough time when it comes to recruiting topline experts. It's not just talent crunch which is the major problem but reaching out to the right talent. I believe the insights from the study will help in streamlining efforts stakeholders are putting in to meet the challenge of talent crunch in the healthcare sector," said M.C. Misra, director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who released the report here.

According to the report, apart from the lack of doctors in the country, the medical practitioners are interested in running their own clinics. Migration to foreign countries is another reason for the dearth of talent in the medical arena.

As per WHO 2013 statistics, there are less than 6 doctors per ten thousand people in India which is a far more disproportionate ratio when compared to the global average of 15 doctors per 10,000 people.

Arvind Pandit, co-founder and CEO of VIA Health Resources, said: "This is not a problem we can solve overnight, however, we could try and attack this issue at multiple levels. We could take some steps towards a creation of a central database which allows for speedy identification of relevant talent."

"The process followed could possibly move from being ad-hoc, as it is currently, to a more rigorous and efficient process. Finally developing a sound yet flexible compensation system that balances the financial impact of delayed recruitment with business results could go a long way towards addressing the problem," he said.