Bhubaneswar, Dec 28 : Odisha is on a mission for massive infrastructure development in healthcare institutions, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said on Thursday.

Addressing an orientation programme on the occasion of induction of 2473 Medical Officers into the state medical services, Patnaik said “we are producing 8 times more doctors now than we were doing two decades ago.

He assured that the state will come up with more number of medical colleges in a few years from now

Out of 2473 doctors inducted into the state health service, 2392 of them are MBBS doctors, and 81 are Dental Surgeons.

The Chief Minister further said that we are also making recruitments for medical and para-medical officers on a large scale. In the current year alone, 3600 medical officers were recruited while in November, nearly 4000 nursing officers joined the state government.

Patnailk said, “we are converting our hospitals to ‘Ama Hospitals to improve quality of healthcare, and achieve desirable patient experience where the patient care facilities is completely free of cost.

He said in the past 6 years, 8 new Medical Colleges and 2 new Post Graduate Institutes have been established in the state.

This has resulted in production of 2525 MBBS doctors and 856 Specialists each year, making Odisha a doctor surplus state.

Naveen distributed high quality stethoscopes to each of the newly recruited Medical Officers and Dental Kit to newly recruited Dental Surgeons.

Health Minister Niranjan Pujari said Odisaha has made significant declines in IMR and MMR creating major milestones at the National level.

5T Chairman VK Pandian said Odisha is witnessing transformation in all major sectors like Health, Education, Food Security, Agriculture and many others fields.