Rural Health Statistics report – Missing doctors: CHCs face 80% shortfall of specialists, show Health Ministry data

Source: The post is based on the article “Missing doctors: CHCs face 80% shortfall of specialists, show Health Ministry data” published in The Hindu on 13th January 2023.

What is the News?

The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has released the Rural Health Statistics report.

What is the Rural Health Statistics report?

It is an annual publication of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) since the year 1992. 

The report provides data on health infrastructure including manpower up to 31st March of every year. 

What are the key findings of the report?

Community Health Centres(CHCs): CHCs are 30-bed block-level health facilities which are ideally supposed to provide basic care related to surgery, gynecology, paediatrics and general medicine. There are 6,064 CHCs across India.

India is reeling under an acute shortage of specialist doctors with a shortfall of nearly 80% of the required specialists at Community Health Centres(CHCs).

This is despite the fact that in 2005, the number of specialist doctors in the CHCs was 3,550, which has seen a 25% increase to 4,485 in 2022. 

However, with the number of CHCs growing, the requirement for specialists required to make the centres functional has also increased.

Primary health centres and sub-centres: There is a shortage of women health workers and auxiliary nursing midwives with up to 14.4% of these posts lying vacant in primary health centres and sub-centres.