Pointing out wide disparities in distribution and availability of specific and specialised manpower in government hospitals across districts, the Karnataka Health Vision Group has recommended a clearly defined Health Human Resources (HRR) policy.
The policy should focus on structuring, augmenting, rationalising, distributing and utilising human resources in different geographical areas and in diverse disciplines, stated the recently released report brought out by the Vision Group.
The Vision Group that studied the HR situation in Karnataka with data available from the Department of Health and Family Welfare during the end of June 2021 found several deficiencies in the public health sector. During June 2021, Karnataka had 40,744 ASHA workers, 3,214 male health workers, 6,543 female health workers, 156 programme officers, 6,838 nurses, 1,886 pharmacists, 1,840 lab technicians, 228 physicians, 237 surgeons, 477 OB GYN specialists, 375 paediatricians, 289 dentists, 462 radiologists and 1,127 other specialists working in the public sector. “It is crucial to note that wide disparities exist in their distribution and availability across and within districts,” stated the report.
“The State does not have a clearly defined HHR policy covering public health, clinical care and medical and allied education; coordinating units and mechanisms that can direct HR policy and programmes. There is distortion in the manpower development process due to imbalance in the public and private sector...” said the report, arguing for scientific mechanisms.
Former director of NIMHANS G. Gururaj, who is the chairman of the Health Vision Group, told The Hindu on Tuesday that the recommendations made were based on the situation in June 2021.
“The situation would have changed following the pandemic. However, there is an urgent need to conduct an HHR study to determine the existing workforce of all categories of health care professionals in government, public sector undertakings (PSUs), private sector and medical and health universities for a scientific gap analysis,” Dr. Gururaj said.
Vacancy positions
The report found that the vacancy position was high in male health workers category at 43.28% with the highest vacancies in Chamarajanagar, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chickaballapur, and Uttara Kannada.
While the vacancy position was 29% in the female health worker category with the highest vacancies in Chamarajanagar followed by Kolar and Chickaballapur it was 23.05% for nurses with the highest vacancies in Raichur.
Likewise, the vacancy position for pharmacists was 31.36% with the highest vacancies in Chamarajanagar, Hassan and Chikkamagaluru. Of the 18.94% shortfall of lab technicians, the highest requirement was in Kodagu and Chamarajanagar.
Among specialists, the shortage is 29.68% for dentists, 13.19% for paediatricians, 7.19% for OBG, 22.97% for radiologists and 16.19 % for other specialists. Vacancies for these specialists has been the highest in Udupi, Raichur, Kolar, Vijayapura, Yadgir, Bidar, Chitradurga, and Kodagu.
Post second wave
State Health Commissioner Randeep D. said human resource availability has “improved considerably” in the last one year following the second wave of COVID. “Overall, we are short of 334 specialists’ and 105 MBBS doctors posted as General Duty Medical Officers (GDMOs) now. Most vacancies in other categories have also been filled up,” he said.
“For these critical vacancies too, a proposal has been sent to the government and on approval the process of recruitment would be completed in this financial year itself,” the Commissioner said.
Micro-study in Kolar
A micro-study of human resources was undertaken in Kolar district to map infrastructure and human resources during April–May 2021. The study found deficiencies in general and specialist manpower in the public sector with greater availability of all categories of medical manpower in the private sector — 265 vs 666. Data collected from the district administrations also revealed that there was a higher concentration of facilities in Kolar, Mulbagalu and Srinivasapura taluks and density of allopathic doctors and nurses per lakh population in Kolar district was 37.6 and 53.8.
