Bonanza for rural doctors on anvil

Ahead of the announcement for the date of panchayat elections, the Trinamool Congress government will table a Bill to provide incentives to MBBS doctors posted in remote areas of the state.

The West Bengal State Health Service Amendment Bill, 2013, is most likely to be tabled on Monday in the Assembly.

Senior officials of the Health Department said that it has been decided that those MBBS passouts working at sub-centres and district hospitals and block primary health care centres as resident medical officers for the last one year will get an incentive of 25 per cent extra of their basic salary as the incentive.

Not only the MBBS doctors, also the medical officers serving at district and sub-divisional hospitals for the last one year will get additional financial incentives. At present, the salary of an MBBS doctor is around Rs 24,000 per month and a medical officer gets around Rs 36,000 as monthly basic salary.

The medical allowances and the house rent will also be doubled for the medical officers who are entitled to receive the allowances, they said.

The decision has been taken after it was seen that doctors who are passing MBBS examination are reluctant to join district and sub divisional hospitals, said Health Department officials. "If this incentive is available to the doctors then they might get attracted working at district and sub-divisional hospitals, which in turn will benefit the patients," said a senior official.

According to government figures, 18,000 students pass MBBS every year and till now there is a vacancy of around 5,000 doctors in medical colleges, sub-divisional hospitals, district and block hospitals. In West Bengal, there are 12 medical colleges and 44 sub-divisional hospital, 22 district hospitals, 348 block primary health care centres.

Director of State Health Service Biswaranjan Sathpati admitted that they are now working on the draft of the Bill.

... contd.

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