OMSA for restructuring of health services

Bhubaneswar, Jun 28 (UNI) Orissa Medical Service Association(OMSA) today urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to involve the doctors in the reform and restructuring process of the health services in the state.

OMSA President Madhusudan Mishra told newspersons here that infant mortality, maternal mortality, crude death rate were rising and there was alarming rise in the prevalence of endemic diseases like malaria, filaria and tuberculosis due to the improper planning, implementation and coordination.

The doctors, he said, were not involved in the programmes and suggested the government to appoint a senior doctors as the Director General of Health Service and Secretary to head the Health sector for better result.

Dr Mishra said the restructuring process would not be complete ''unless the technical people are put in the highest bodies of the planning, policy making and implementation.'' He said the health sector had already been restructured in states like Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat.

The OMSA President warned that the health care system would slip into a state of chaos if early steps were not taken.

Dr Mishra said the state needed 10,000 to 12,000 doctors to provide minimum basic primary health care to the 4.5 million people of the state 85 per cent of whom were residing in villages with 47 per cent of them living below the poverty line.

He said a little over three thousand doctors were now managing the show and more than one thousand health institutions in the state were functioning without any doctor.

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