The Health minister Dhan Singh Rawat admitted in the State Assembly on Thursday that there is shortage of specialist doctors in the State health services. In response to a question of the Congress MLA Virendra Kumar on the fourth day of the budget session of the Assembly, the minister said that there are 1,236 posts of specialist doctors in the State health services and in them only 536 are working. He said that every possible effort is being made to recruit specialist doctors for the health services including the ‘You quote we pay’ policy. The minister informed that the State has a total of 2,856 posts of medical officers (MOs) and in them 2,442 MOs are working in the state health services. The minister claimed that 300 more MOs would soon join the state health services.

In response to another question the minister said that all the Health centres in the State are being upgraded as the norms of the IPHS. He informed that the State has 577 primary health centres (PHCs) and 80 Community Health Centres (CHCs). Rawat said that the State has 1,896 sub centres which have been converted to the health and wellness centres. The minister added that 1,381 community health officers (CHOs) were recently recruited for these health and wellness centres.

 In response to a question of Bhagwanpur MLA Mamta Rakesh, the minister said that the State government would open a medical college in every district of the State. He told Rakesh that the medical college in Bhagwanpur can be opened under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode. He said that work in government medical college Haridwar is going on at full swing and the college would start functioning from the session of 2024-25. He said that the health department has recruited 171 faculty for the medical colleges.