The Union cabinet on Wednesday decided to shift experienced doctors who reach the age of 62 from the Central government and its entities into teaching and implementation of national health programmes.
The meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved strengthening of teaching, patient, clinical care and public health programme implementation by shifting experienced doctors into these areas. The government has been struggling to find faculty to man the new and upgraded medical colleges as well as strengthen the national health programme.
The government in fact is faced with the problem of shortage of doctors, low joining and high attrition rate in the Central health service. To tackle this, the government had, a couple of years ago, raised the superannuation age of doctors of the Central health service to 65. Last year, the government had increased the age of superannuation of doctors in other ministries, Indian Railways, Central universities and Aayush to 65.
The cabinet also decided to raise the superannuation age of doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre, Bhopal, to meet the shortage of faculty and specialists, to improve patient care for victims of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy and members of the victims' families.