Punjab to recruit 428 medical officers on urgent basis even as death count due to COVID-19 crosses 1036

Intensifying its fight against the COVID-19 crisis, the Punjab Cabinet on Tuesday approved filling up of 428 regular vacancies of Medical Officers (Specialists) on urgent basis. The Cabinet also gave ex-post facto approval to 107 posts already filled up for six specialities.

The state has so far reported 41,000 Corona positive cases and 1036 deaths.

Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, while chairing the Cabinet meeting, said the staff needed to be on board urgently to tackle the crisis, with the state projected to be headed for a peak in the pandemic. He had earlier stressed on the need to identify vacant specialist posts and hire manpower immediately.

An official spokesperson of the CMO informed that the recruitment, to be undertaken in the Health Department, would be done by a Special Selection Committee headed by Dr. KK Talwar through walk-in-interviews.

The posts for which the post-facto approval has been okayed form part of the ongoing recruitment process for 323 Medical Officers (Specialists). The Cabinet also decided to carry forward reserve categories posts/adjustment against Medical Officer (General) to meet the shortage of doctors. In view of the high number of suitable candidates in certain specialties, it was also decided to offer jobs to all such successful candidates in that particular speciality and to increase the number of posts in that slab accordingly.

Of the 428 new posts, 136 have been sanctioned at District Hospital level, with a maximum of 22 in pediatrics and 20 each for forensic medicine and gynaecology, followed by 18 in microbiology.

At Sub Divisional Hospitals (190), maximum 39 posts each are in medicine and gynaecology followed by skin and VD (30), ENT (29) and anesthesia (13). A total of 102 posts have been sanctioned in anesthesia at Community Health Centres. The Health Department would be filling these posts as early as possible besides creating more posts if the need arises, said the spokesperson.

The health department had taken approval to fill 3,954 posts of medical and para-medical staff from the Cabinet in June and the recruitment process for that is already underway. Selection process for 323 posts of medical officers (specialists) of 13 different specialists is also going on and issuance of appointment certificates to successful candidates is underway.

Of these 323 posts, only 34 belong to General Category and rest are from various reserved categories. For the purpose of recruitment, the

upper age limit has relaxed up to 45 years in case of persons already in government service.