panchkula even though panchkula health departments efforts to stave off a possible third covid wave are better than other districts of haryana it is facing challenges like staff and infrastructure shortage almost 50 of sanctioned posts of doctors in the district are lying vacantthe health department of panchkula did not disclose the exact number of sanctioned posts but 224 doctors including 29 contractual and consultant doctors are working in the district at present according to who guidelines one doctor is required per 1000 population the population of panchkula according to the 2011 census is 561 lakh which means that 561 doctors are required over the last 10 years the population has reached almost eight lakh which necessitates an update in the number of sanctioned posts in line with who guidelines a senior health officials said hiring doctors is not in their hands as it was up to the health department haryana they said they had sent the proposal of requirement of doctors as per requirement time and again officials also said that they have 584 nurses asha and anm workers besides ayush department officials worked together with the health department during the covid pandemic giving additional manpower to the health departmentduring the peak of covid panchkula district received maximum of 720 covid patients in a day largest number in the history of the district but officials claimed that they took care of all patients with the existing staff without any problemthe health department took help of mbbs and nursing students to assist doctors during peak covid time after giving them basic training requiredon the infrastructure needed to tackle the third covid wave chief medical officer cmo dr mukta kumar said that one oxygen plant of 300 lpm litre per minute capacity had been set up at the civil hospital in sector 6 and icu beds had been given direct oxygen connection one oxygen plant of 1000 lpm from hsiidc has been approved and work on this will start soon oxygen plants in subcivil hospital kalka and raipur chc community health centre are under installationthe district has 45 ventilators including 205 oxygen concentrators at the 300bedded civil hospital besides there are 30 to 50 beds in each of the other health centres the district has one subcivil hospital in kalka one community health centre chcs nine primary health centres phcs and seven urban dispensaries to cater to patients private hospitals have also been asked and trained to cater to covid patients during times of needhealth department officials are giving training of icu anesthesia and paediatrics to each doctor in the district