E-Paper
10 more trauma centres to be made fully operational in U.P.
The aim of establishing 36 trauma centres in Uttar Pradesh was to cater to the road accident victims with specialist care within the golden hour.
LUCKNOW The Uttar Pradesh health department has sent a proposal to the state government seeking its nod to make 10 trauma centres fully functional.
As per the proposal, government doctors from public hospitals will be shifted to the selected trauma centres. However, it will be ensured that doctors are not moved to other districts, said a senior official in the health department.
At present, the state has 36 public-owned trauma centres. Among them, 28 are partially functional as they have basic staff and equipment but no specialist doctors to cater to serious cases. Among these 28 trauma centres, 10 will be made fully functional after the government’s approval.
“Once the proposal gets the nod, the selection of doctors will start. We will ensure that the transfer of doctors to trauma centres does not hamper working at hospitals. Doctors will just have to change the place of reporting/working within the same district,” added the official.
Notably, the aim of establishing 36 trauma centres in Uttar Pradesh was to cater to the road accident victims with specialist care within the golden hour. Therefore, the location of these trauma centres was chosen strategically near the highways. “In trauma cases, the time taken to start the treatment matters a lot. The shorter the gap between injury and treatment, the lesser the blood-loss. Also, internal injury harms less if treatment is started at the earliest,” said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general association of international doctors.
Proposal to increase retirement age for docs to be reviewed ‘again’
The proposal to increase the retirement age for government doctors in Uttar Pradesh is being reviewed again, keeping in view the provision for the retirement of doctors in other states.
In January, a committee was formed to evaluate the proposal for increasing the retirement age from 62 to 65 years. The government doctors had opposed the proposal and the committee too stated, in its report, that raising the retirement age was not required.
Now, a second thought is being given to decide whether increasing the retirement age will benefit the healthcare system. “We are also looking at the retirement age of government doctors in other states,” said a senior health official.
Less than 14,000 doctors are working in government hospitals across the state and at least 7,000 posts of doctors are vacant at present. Every month, over a dozen doctors retire, reducing the strength by at least 150 a year. The medical education department has kept the retirement age of doctors in Uttar Pradesh at 65 years.
The recruitment efforts have not brought the required strength in the past year at government hospitals. The health department is particularly focused on the shortage of specialists.
