Ludhiana: Ayurveda department facing acute shortage of doctors, nurses

Of the total 64 posts of Ayurvedic Medical Officer (AMO), 19 posts are lying vacant in the ayurveda department. While highlighting the shortage of doctors, district ayurveda officer Dr Raman Khanna on Monday said the posts have been lying vacant for around two years. “Doctors get retired or transferred and the posts go on becoming vacant. A couple of doctors were up for retirement in August last year as well,” he said.

The district has one hospital and 64 dispensaries of which 41 are run by the department and 23 run by National Health Mission. Many hospitals have also not received medicines since September 2023, forcing doctors to buy medicine out of their own pockets along with the help of NGOs.

To compensate for the vacant posts, many doctors are working at different dispensaries across the district on a rotational basis. Dr Khanna said that there is a recruitment process in the pipeline as of now.

The department is also suffering from a shortage of nurses. At present all five posts of staff nurses in the district lie vacant. The Ayurveda department gets nurses from the health department on deputation. All the nurses were called back by the health department as it faced a resource crunch.

The Ayurvedic hospital in Model Town has been struggling to keep up with surgeries due to the shortage of nurses. Surgeon Dr Hemant Kumar said that the hospital has only two posts and saw around 10 surgeries every month earlier, but now the number has fallen to three or four. Dr Hemant revealed that there are no more surgeries for women as they are uncomfortable with the male paramedics. “To make up for the lack of nurses, pharmacists assisted me in many surgeries,” he said.

Director, Ayurveda Department, Dr Ravi Dumra, when approached, didn’t respond to calls.