NEW DELHI: All post graduates from All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will now be absorbed within the institutes across the country as part of the government’s move to fill up huge vacancies of doctors and faculty positions.
In order to streamline the recruitment process, it has been decided that all appointments will be made directly by the selection committee and ratified by AIIMS governing body and institute body later.
“We have formulated a protocol to induct all AIIMS graduates during placement. This will ensure that we do not lose doctors to private hospitals because of any delay in recruitment process. For the same reason, we have also delegated powers of the IB and GB to the selection committee, which can now select and appoint doctors directly, the IB and GB will ratify these appointments later,” health minister JP Nadda told TOI.
The move comes in the wake of the new institutes facing an acute shortage of doctors. Apart from New Delhi’s AIIMS, there are six other AIIMS in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh — which are currently functional. Moreover, the Centre has announced setting up 13 more AIIMS, including two in Jammu and Kashmir and one each in Gorakhpur, Assam, Bathinda in Punjab, Guntur, Nagpur and Kalyani in West Bengal. Shortage of doctors and faculty members has been a major challenge in making the new AIIMS fully functional.
Data presented by the health ministry in Parliament shows that out of the 1,962 posts of senior resident doctors, only 399 posts were filled across the six new AIIMS. Besides, out of the total sanctioned posts of 1,806 junior resident doctors across these six AIIMS, only 212 doctors were working.
In case of faculty, while 305 positions were sanctioned in each of the six new AIIMS, only 583 out of the total 1,830 faculty posts have been filled up.
“Almost 47% of these vacancies are because of delay in approval from GB and IB. Because of this delay, we often lose our own graduates to private players, despite so many vacancies in these institutes,” health secretary Preeti Sudan said.
Sudan said a similar strategy is likely to be adopted for inducting nurses, whose numbers also fall far short of the requirement.
Nadda said the government has also planned to meet the challenge of faculty shortage through exchange programmes. While quality of faculty at new AIIMS has been a concern, the government has now decided to exchange faculty from regional institutes on a regular basis.
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