Bhubaneswar: As many as 2,473 medical officers were inducted into the state medical services at “Nijukti Parva” held at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Thursday.
Addressing the medical officers including 2,392 MBBS doctors and 81 dental surgeons, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said his government’s objective is to see transformation in every sector in every region. Healthcare is a priority area of our 5T transformative initiative.
“As young doctors, you can contribute immensely to this drive. Just ensure that every patient feels a positive vibe when he or she visits you. Along with your professional excellence, your humane approach to patients can create confidence in them,” he said.
“Remember that every pie spent on our salary, or for the building we are working in, is paid by the people of Odisha. We are here to serve them,” he added.
Naveen said the government is committed to provide universal access to quality health services to all. “Our objective is Sustha Odisha, Sukhi Odisha. Our guiding principle to achieve this objective is ‘every life is precious’,” he added.
“In realisation of this goal, we are on a mission for massive infrastructure development in healthcare institutions. We are producing 8 times more doctors now than we were doing two decades ago. We will come up with more medical colleges in a few year,” he assured.
Stating that the government was making recruitments for medical and para-medical officers on a large scale, the chief minister said in the current year alone, 3,600 medical officers have been recruited. In November, nearly 4,000 nursing officers have joined the government services, he added.
Due to high priority given by the government to the health sector, 8 new medical colleges and 2 new post-graduate institutes have been established in the state in the past 6 years. This has resulted in production of 2,525 MBBS doctors and 856 Specialists each year, making Odisha a doctor-surplus state.
The Chief Minister distributed high quality stethoscopes to each of the newly recruited Medical Officers and Dental Kit to newly recruited Dental Surgeons. The Medical Officers have been posted in different districts through transparent merit based online counselling system.
Health Minister Niranjan Pujari, 5T chairman VK Pandian, Health Secretary Shalini Pandit and Health Director Dr Bijoy Mohapatra also spoke.
