With over 100 sanctioned posts vacant and more than 70 PHCs without doctors, the health system is collapsing — but the government continues to stall recruitment.
Nagaland’s public healthcare system is teetering on the brink — not due to lack of funding or effort by medical personnel, but due to policy inaction and bureaucratic gridlock.
In an interview conducted on February 2025, then Principal Director of Health and Family Welfare, Dr E Motsuthung Patton, revealed alarming statistics about the state of the department: “Out of the 514+ sanctioned posts, we have fewer than 400 in service,” he said. That’s a shortfall of more than 100 doctors, or nearly 20% of total sanctioned positions.
Dr Patton also confirmed that recruitment through the Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC) has been at a standstill for the past 5–6 years, and every year, more doctors retire.
“We cannot keep two or three specialists in one hospital under these conditions,” he said.
In November 2024, Health Minister Paiwang Konyak, during a visit to Imkongliba Memorial District Hospital (IMDH) Mokokchung, publicly acknowledged that Nagaland faces a shortage of over 100 doctors.
Yet no steps have been taken toward fresh recruitment. Instead, a pending legal dispute over the Special Recruitment Drive initiated during the Covid-19 pandemic has halted all hiring.
“The NPSC is also saying, unless the Special Recruitment Drive is completed, recruitment cannot be done,” Dr Patton explained.
The Special Drive aimed to regularize doctors recruited during the pandemic. But following opposition and legal challenges, it now awaits a court verdict — leaving both regular recruitment and emergency hiring in limbo.
Crucially, this is not a constitutional blockade. The legal case relates only to one batch of appointments. It does not prevent the state from initiating new, merit-based recruitment through NPSC or any other authorized channel.
If the state government is sincere about addressing this crisis, it can introduce a fresh recruitment policy, or notify new posts and take emergency measures to fill them.
Instead, the government has completely shut down hiring pathways. When asked about temporary or contract-based recruitment to ease the crisis, Dr Patton said:
“There is no contract appointment now. It is totally banned by the government. The department can only appoint Grade-IV staff, and only for retirement vacancies, because no new posts are being created.”
This means no permanent hiring, no ad hoc contracts, and no new posts — even as retirements continue and manpower dwindles.
“Almost every district faces a shortage of doctors. In fact, more than 70 Primary Health Centres don’t have medical officers,” Dr Patton disclosed.
This is not just a crisis. It’s a collapse of rural healthcare delivery.
When asked what steps the government was taking, Dr Patton admitted: “We have discussed it before, and we are planning to discuss it again in the coming days.”
For years now, this seems to be the official stance — discussion without direction, policy without urgency.
The Right to Health is a component of the Right to Life under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. A state cannot indefinitely defer its health responsibilities due to internal disputes. If lives are at stake, legal technicalities cannot justify inaction.
The state government must immediately frame a new recruitment policy for doctors and health workers, and begin the process through NPSC or other constitutional means. The ban on contractual appointments must be revisited, and health emergencies treated as governance priorities.
Nagaland’s health crisis is no longer hypothetical — it is real, growing, and government-made. If the state chooses to continue waiting for court verdicts and internal approvals while over 100 posts lie vacant and rural hospitals remain empty, it amounts to abdication of duty. In the face of suffering, the Constitution demands action — not excuses.