All the Community Health Centres (CHCs) in each of the 314 blocks of Odisha will now have at least four specialist doctors with the state government restructuring the Odisha Medical Service (OMS) cadre.
A notification issued by the health and family welfare department said that specialists in O & G (Obstetrics and Gynaecology), medicine, paediatrics and surgery will be available at the CHCs with the government raising the number of sanctioned posts of doctors from 5389 to 6719.
Earlier, there were no public health posts at the block-level.
The government has now earmarked 578 posts of doctors as public health posts at various levels.
The objective of the restructuring exercise was to meet public health challenges like monitoring outbreak of diseases, controlling dengue, malaria, diarrhoea rather than discharging routine patient care.
The number of posts of Special Secretary (Super Time Pay Scale Grade) has also been increased from one to two while Director (Senior Administrative Grade) has gone up from five to 12.
The total number of senior doctors in the Pay Band-4 has increased from 35 to 434.
The government has also created regular cadre for specialists and general duty medical officer in Special Newborn Care Units (SNCU), High Dependency Units (HDU), Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres, Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) and Urban Community Health Centres (UCHC).
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