The medical health and family welfare department would soon get 314 medical officers (MO). More than 800 candidates have applied for these posts of MOs advertised by Uttarakhand Medical Services Selection Board (UMSSB). Thursday was last date for filing online forms for these posts of MOs.
Unlike it did in previous recruitment drive, the Board has decided not to extend the last date of on line application this time. The chairman of the UMSSB, Dr D S Rawat said that the board would start conducting interviews for these posts of MOs in the month of February.
He said that 228 posts out of 314 are for candidates of reserved categories while general category candidates can apply for 86 posts. The selected MO would be inducted in the pay scale of 56100- 177500 (level 10) of state health services. The new recruitment drive is the second such drive after October 2017, when UMSSB had released the recruitment advertisement for 712 posts of MO in the state health services. However it could not find candidates of reserved categories for 213 posts.
It is learnt that these posts would now be abolished so that new recruitment drive can be started for them. Dr Rawat added that the board would soon release recruitment advertisement for 31 posts of Medical Officers for the hospitals of Employee State Insurance (ESI).
The new MOs once inducted into the state health department would infuse a new lease of life in the health services. The data of the state health department reveals that as many as 679 posts of medical officers are vacant in the state health services which have a sanctioned strength of 2735.
A closer look on the data shows that only 1522 regular doctors are working in the health services of Uttarakhand.
To aggravate the problem further as many as 239 doctors are on leave for various reasons while 173 out of 359 bonded medical officers (Contractual) are not giving their services as they are doing their post graduation.