In order to evolve a suitable mechanism to sort out the staff shortage faced in medical colleges and the hospitals attached to it, the Kerala government has decided to bifurcate the entire staff of the medical college hospitals from the hospitals that come under the Directorate of Health Services (DHS) and make them independent at all levels. The decision has been taken some time back and the order is expected to come soon.

Till now there was lot of confusion related to the appointment and posting of paramedical staff and non-teaching staff in the medical colleges due to the dual control of power between the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) and DHS.

The teaching staffs of the medical college hospitals were pushed into the control of the DME in the 80s when it was constituted, but at that time, the government failed to bring the paramedical and other staff including nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, radiologists, and sweepers under the DME. And this has caused serious confusion.

"When the government took the move to transfer the control over the teaching staff from the DHS to DME, they should have taken the decision to shift the control over the paramedical and non - teaching staff also. But they failed to do so. So now the filling of vacant posts and posting of staff has become difficult and finding efficient people to occupy the empty positions has also become hard," said a source.

Stating that there was 35 to 40 per cent shortage of staff in the medical college hospitals, informed sources said, "If the DME has to appoint any staff they have to write a letter to the DHS and they will forward it to other relevant authorities. This takes a long time and the shortage of staff has been there for nearly 10 to 12 years now," said the source.

Speaking about the protests that were going on against the bifurcation, he said that it was a minor hurdle and could be sorted out by mutual discussions. "The protesters feel that their promotion may be affected. All this can be sorted out by mutual discussions," said the source.

The LDF led government had recently cleared the proposal.