Citizens can now expect to get better healthcare services closer to their homes, as the local civic body plans to improve the pay structure of its medical and paramedical workforce providing primary and secondary healthcare infrastructure. It also plans to recruit close to 700 personnel and expand secondary healthcare infrastructure. The move is aimed to divert routine cases away from its large super-specialty hospitals, which will then cater to patients suffering from severe ailments. The state government will fund the pay expense of this medical and paramedical staff. The primary infrastructure consists of Urban Health Centres (UHCs) which have only Out Patient Department (OPD) and treat patients with normal ailments by providing them medicines, while secondary infrastructure consists of Community Health Centres (CHCs) which are like multispeciality hospitals, where in addition to OPD, facilities of indoor patients as well and better diagnostic infrastructure are available. The tertiary infrastructure consists of large multi-super-specialty hospitals like LG Hospital, Shardaben Hospital, VS Hospital, and newly commissioned SVP hospital. AMC has 72 UHCs and seven CHCs. AMC plans to add five CHCs. Benefits New appointees to get permanent employee pay scale Attrition likely to come down, services expected to improve Burden on AMC hospitals to go down Only critical cases to be referred to hospitals However, the staff at UHCs and CHCs are appointed on contract basis and paid accordingly. The state government has decided to fund the pay expense of medical and paramedical staff, who will be appointed on a contract basis, but will be paid at par with permanent employees. The matter had come up during the meeting of the Standing Committee of AMC, which gave a go-ahead for fresh recruitments. Amul Bhatt, chairman of the committee informed media persons that 458 personnel will be appointed with regular pay scale and another 232 will be appointed as per contract system. UHCs will get Medical Officers, pharmacists and supporting paramedical staff, while CHCs will get specialists like gynecologists and pediatricians among others as well as laboratory technicians for X-ray, sonography and other diagnostic services. “As the pay structure is more lucrative now, we expect the doctors and paramedics to devote themselves completely to their respective centers to offer round-the-clock service. It will improve accountability and reduce attrition,” said Bhavin Solanki, Medical Officer of Health (in-charge) at AMC. A pilot was conducted at Vatva CHC, where the number of OPDs increased from close to 100 per day to about 1,000. Similarly, the number of deliveries, X-rays, and sonographies also increased. The treatment here is absolutely free. “Now a UHC will run like a private clinic of a doctor, while a CHC will operate like a multispeciality hospital. This will reduce the inflow of patients at large multi super-speciality hospitals run by AMC and we will be able to focus on critical and complicated cases at hospitals,” said Solanki. He also informed that initially, the appointment will be on contract basis, a possibility of permanent appointment at a later stage cannot be ruled out.

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