Andhra Pradesh’s Health Minister Assures to Amend GO 85

Vijayawada: Minister for Health Satya Kumar Yadav on Wednesday assured agitating doctors to amend a part of GO 85 dealing with reservation to in-service PHC doctors for taking admission in PG courses.

Representatives from Andhra Pradesh PHC Doctors’ Association, AP Government Doctors Association held talks with the minister for health Y. Satya Kumar, MLC Vepada Chiranjeevi Rao and senior health officials here on Wednesday.

The minister promised efforts to make changes to GO 85 keeping in mind the vacancies for specialist doctors in 2027 and also the number of aspirants to pursue PG courses in 2024 to do justice to them.

He made it clear that the number of vacancies for special doctors in government hospitals in 2020 and the PHC doctors who got eligibility to pursue PG course in 2024, were found to be highly disproportional and assured efforts to meet the aspirations of PHC doctors to pursue PG courses.

The PHC doctors are up against the state government on GO 85 as it aimed to reduce the intake of in-service PHC doctors to pursue PG courses to 15 per cent from 30 per cent in clinical subjects and also to 30 per cent from 50 per cent in non-clinical subjects.

The meeting also discussed other issues like time-bound promotions, notional increments and other issues.

The minister said the state government had accepted to make an amendment to GO 85 and agreed to consider the request from PHC doctors to allow them to pursue PG courses apart from the six courses already mentioned. He advised the agitating PHC doctors to give up their stir and assured them to call them for another round of talks before taking a final decision on the issue.