Health dept to take up mega recruitment drive from March

Kolkata: The state health department is all set to undertake a massive recruitment drive in the said sector to further boost infrastructure in government-run health establishments.

According to sources, the recruitment process will be started by the West Bengal Health Recruitment Board (WBHRB) from March this year and many vacant posts will be filled up. Nearly 2,000 doctors will be recruited at various levels of the public health sector. Sources added that at least 6,000 nursing personnel will be inducted and 75 non-medical superintendents will be recruited soon. Besides other posts, around 160 ward masters, 200 pharmacists, 150 lab technologists will also be inducted into service to give a major impetus in the health infrastructure amidst the pandemic situation.

After Covid broke out, the state government had recruited doctors and health professionals at various stages but the overall recruitment process was hampered for over two years due to the virus. Notifications will soon be published in this regard. The WBHRB is trying to recruit all doctors and health professionals within March this year. Doctors will be recruited in Ayurvedic medical colleges as well besides others. Many hostels are being constructed to accommodate both female nursing students and MBBS students.

The state Health department had decided to recruit around 1,500 Community Health Officers (CHO) in various Suswasthya Kendras across the state. In the wake of COVID-19 situation, the state government has been trying to make adequate arrangements of doctors and health workers to meet the requirements which may arise in any situation.

The West Bengal Health Recruitment Board had recruited 1,371 specialist medical officers earlier while 1,174 vacant posts of general duty medical officers were also filled up last year. Earlier in 2020, the state Health department had announced the recruitment of over 1,500 medical officers and 9,000 nursing staff in order to mitigate the crisis of nursing staff members and doctors in the state-run hospitals, mostly in the districts. There are presently more than 12,000 doctors in government hospitals. The number of doctors in government hospitals stood at 4,500 in 2011. The number of nurses has gone up to over 53,000. When the Mamata Banerjee government came to power, there were around 37,366 nurses in government health establishments.