Closing human resources gap in health: Moving beyond production to proactive recruitments

Human Resources for Health (HRH) plays an integral role in healthcare service delivery. Gap in HRH has been a major concern with our healthcare ecosystem for a long time. It is vital to have adequately staffed public healthcare facilities, which are freely accessible to the population. To understand the reasons, we looked at the production, availability, and vacancies of HRH existing in public sector as well as measures taken for closing HRH gap during the period 2014-2015 to 2019-2020 and best practices adopted by the some of the State/UTs. We relied on official websites and official reports/statistics. While teaching capacity has increased significantly in recent past, and there are sufficient numbers of registered HRH, it has not translated into the recruitment of HRH in public facilities. Measures like campus placement, assured career progression, efficient and transparent recruitment process, modern and responsive HR management system, financial and non-financial incentives and notification of the vacant posts can play a vital role in filling the existing gaps. Some of the states have taken proactive measures for filling the vacancies, which can be replicated. The vacancies need to be filled in a mission mode. States also need to sanction required posts as per the norms. The ratio between different categories of healhtcare staff should be taken into consideration while sanctioning posts for these cadres. Availability of HRH in public sector as per norms would contribute toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal-3, reducing out of pocket expenditure and bring enormous socioeconomic gains.