IMPHAL, July 1: Health minister, Phungzathang Tonsing has claimed that the health care system in the State has witnessed a tremendous improvement during the pass few year despite shortage of doctors.
The Health Minister stated this while replying to a query raised by Andro MLA, Th Shyamkumar during the Question Hour of the ongoing Assembly session today.
He said while there are only 1196 doctors of the total requirement of 2222 doctors in the State, there are altogether 522 health centres including seven district hospitals in the entire State. Nevertheless, the health care system has improved a lot compared to previous years, he observed. The minister attributed this to careful planning of the department including the recruitment of 832 doctors this year.
He said that his department is trying its best to further improve the system and gradually the vacant post of doctors will be filled.
Of the total requirement the need for MHS Grade-I is 16 in numbers, 134 for MHS Grade-II, 599 for MHS Grade-III and 1470 for MHS Grade-IV. However, at present there are only 1961 doctors including 2 MHS Grade-I, 34 in Grade-II, 90 in Grade-III and 1070 in Grade-IV, he continued.
Of the total 522 health centres there are 17 CHC, 85 CHC, 420 PHSC and 7 district hospitals.
Th Shyamukar in his questioned initially sought information on the number of hospitals, doctors under the health department of Manipur.
Further in his supplementary question he enquired the Minister how can the health service operate when there was a deficiency of 1026 doctors with 522 health centres to operate.