According to the Rural Health Statistics report published by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, India is reeling under an acute shortage of specialist doctors, with a shortfall of nearly 80% of the required specialists at Community Health Centres (CHCs).
What are Community Health Centres (CHCs)?
- CHCs are 30-bed block-level health facilities which are ideally supposed to provide basic care related to surgery, gynaecology, paediatrics and general medicine.
- Community Health Centre in rural areas (CHC) is to be established for a population norm of 80,000 (in hilly and tribal areas) and 1,20,000 (in plains) and/or time to care approach.
- To establish effective convergence and linkages with citizen centric services, a CHC should be established at the Community Development Block/Taluka/Tehsil/Circle Level. This will also supplement the three-tier Panchayati System (Gram Panchayat, Block Panchayat and Zila Panchayat).
- The Community Health Centre in urban areas (UCHC) is set up as a secondary care referral centre in metro cities with a population of 5 lakh and above and population of 2.5 lakh in non-metro cities.
Key highlights of report
- The report points out that there is a shortfall of specialist doctors, including surgeons (83.2%), obstetricians and gynaecologists (74.2%), physicians (79.1%) and paediatricians (81.6%).
- There are 6,064 CHCs across India and the Health Ministry has been unsuccessful in meeting the requirement for specialist doctors in most of these centres.
- This is despite the fact that, in 2005, the number of specialist doctors in CHCs was 3,550, which has seen a 25% increase to 4,485 in 2022. However, with the number of CHCs growing, the requirement for specialist doctors required to make the centres functional has also increased.
Recommendations
- The report has noted that funds should be provided for outsourcing and providing support services according to the need of each centre.
- It also recommends that nursing orderlies be trained in the assistive procedures required for surgery.
- Apart from specialist doctors, there is also a shortage of female health workers and auxiliary nursing midwives, with upto 14.4% of these posts lying vacant in primary health centres and sub-centres.
(Source: The Hindu)
