The Uttarakhand govt. has initiated a scheme for specialist doctors in which doctors can tell their price of service and Uttarakhand govt. will pay for it. The Govt. suggested that the scheme would help in mitigating the specialist doctors’ shortage in the state.
According to Dr Vineeta Shah, the newly-appointed director general of the health and family welfare department, the state is short of specialist doctors by 45%. They need at least 1252 expert doctors at various health facilities, and the current number of working doctors is just 565. Patients are frequently referred to tertiary care centres because of the lack of specialist doctors in hill districts.
In order to curb the deficiency of medicos in the Uttarakhand hill districts, the newly appointed director general disclosed their 2023 motto, which is focused on improving the number of expert doctors in hill districts through the ‘You quote, we pay’ scheme.