The Comptroller and Auditor General has said there was an acute shortage of medical professionals in government medical colleges. In its audit report (civil) for the year ending March 2011, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) said 36 per cent posts of medical professionals lies unfilled. Also, the report said despite announcements by the government, hospital buildings had failed to come up at Fatehgarh Sahib and Nangal. A super-specialty hospital was announced by former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in December 2004 at Peerjain in Fatehgarh Sahib.

The alarming new trend of asking patients to undergo surgery they could do without

The commonest test used to diagnose tuberculosis — an expensive blood test available in the form of a kit — could be one of the reasons for the rising drug resistance of the tuberculosis bacterium. The Central TB Control Division of the Health Ministry has written to the Drug Controller General of India to ban these serological test kits. The most commonly used method of TB detection, costing Rs 800-1,000 each, the kits look for the disease by examination of blood serum.