CAG finds yawning gap in sanctioned posts, working staff in healthcare dept

Hyderabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) found a huge gap between the sanctioned posts and actual position of healthcare staff in the State, with overall vacancies being at 45 per cent.

The CAG’s observations in its latest report on Public Health Infrastructure and Management of Health Services in Telangana State showed that the Department of Health and Family Welfare had not maintained a centralised database of sanctioned strength, actual personnel in positions and district-wise deployment data of doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff in healthcare facilities across the State.

The report said there were huge gaps between sanctioned posts and the actual position of healthcare staff in the health facilities, with the overall vacancies being 45 per cent. Out of six HODs under the HM&FW Department, the most number of vacancies were in the Director of Medical Education (56 per cent) and the least were in the Drugs Control Administration (34 per cent).

Acute shortages of teaching staff were observed in nine Medical Colleges with overall vacancies in the cadre of Associate Professors (48 per cent) and Assistant Professors/Tutors (40 per cent). Vacancies in the positions of Associate Professors and Assistant Professors have an impact on the quality of education provided to medical students.

As per the norms of WHO, a doctor is to be available for every 1,000 persons. The availability of doctors showed an increasing trend from 2017-18 to 2021-22 and the ratio was 1:881 in the State of Telangana which compares favourably with WHO norms.

The CAG has recommended the State Government to formulate a Human Resource Policy with emphasis on short, medium and long term goals to address the shortage of human resources in various cadres. The state government should review the availability of manpower in all the health institutions and ensure availability of staff as per the IPHS norms. The government should develop a Human Resource Management System (HRMS) to know the deployment of staff in all health facilities across all HODs on a real time basis, it mentioned.