Hundreds of villagers and residents of remote areas such as Valparai and Kottur in the district who were forced to slog all the way to the city to reach Coimbatore Medical College Hospital due to lack of specialists in Government Hospitals in their locality can now heave a sigh of relief.
The vacancies for all specialists posts such as ortho surgeons, paediatricians, obstetricians and gynaecologists in all the nine Government Taluk, non-Taluk and the district headquarters hospitals in Coimbatore have been filled in the counselling held for postgraduate medical students, G. Elangovan, Joint Director of Medical and Rural Services, told The Hindu .
These posts were lying vacant for periods ranging from a couple of months to as long as one year in some cases.
Among the areas where doctors have been posted include the 36-bed Valparai GH, which sees around 250 patients a day and caters predominantly to the tribal population, and the 116-bed Mettupalayam GH, which sees 1,200 patients a day.
A total of 32 doctors were posted during the counselling, which was held in batches from March 15 to April 30.
Of these, 29 doctors have already joined the posts with one more doctor likely to join a couple of days.
The remaining two, he said, will be joining duty shortly.
The 191 bed-Pollachi GH, which sees around 1,400 outpatients a day, was the biggest beneficiary of this exercise with 12 posts being filled, he said. Dr. Elangovan said that six posts were filled at the Mettupalayam GH along with four at Kottur GH, three each at Perianaickenpalayam and Valparai GHs and two at Annur GH besides one each at Sulur and Vettaikaranpudur GHs.
There are no vacancies in the Police Hospital, which is staffed by two medical officers. The Pollachi GH is a district headquarters hospital. While Mettupalayam and Valparai GHs were taluk hospitals, the rest were non-Taluk hospitals.
Filling up these vacancies, he said, would immensely benefit the local population who can avail themselves of the services of specialists in their area itself.
