With an aim to boost health infrastructure in the state, the Uttarakhand government will soon be appointing 763 doctors to fill vacant posts.

Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Tuesday instructed officials to start the appointment process of ordinary grade medical officers in the state.

“State’s health system will be strengthened by the recruitment of 763 doctors. Health infrastructure has been greatly improved in the state. Now every district in the state has ICU facilities. The number of physicians has been doubled compared to earlier. Tele-radiology and telemedicine services were also introduced. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, 400 new doctors were recruited, 273 ICU beds installed and 165 ventilators procured,” said Rawat.

Meanwhile, a 75-year-old male Covid-19 positive patient died in Dehradun district on Tuesday.

The health bulletin mentioned, “One death of 75-year-old of a male is reported from Doon Medical College Dehradun. The deceased was referred from Max hospital Dehradun on June 24, as a case of fracture, neck & femur, CAD & COVID-19 positive. During treatment, he developed sepsis, bilateral pneumonia and expired.”

On Tuesday, 69 fresh Covid-19 cases were reported in the state, taking its tally to 3,230. The cases were reported from districts like Almora (2), Champawat (2), Dehradun (18), Haridwar (7), Nainital (5), Pauri Garhwal (3), Pithoragarh (3), Tehri Garhwal (1), Udham Singh Nagar (25) and Uttarkashi (3).

Of the 69 patients, 20 cases were of people who were found to be contacts of earlier Covid-19 positive patients and nine patients tested positive at a hospital’s OPD in US Nagar district.

The others had returned to the state from places like Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Srinagar and Kazakhstan.

A total of 35 patients were discharged from hospitals on Tuesday after recovering from the coronavirus disease. These patients belonged to districts like Almora (10), Bageshwar (2), Chamoli (1), Dehradun (5), Haridwar (7), Nainital (3), Pauri Garhwal (1), Udham Singh Nagar (3) and Uttarkashi (3).

The rate of doubling of cases based on the last seven days stands at 53.17 days in the state, with a recovery rate of 81.15%. Uttarakhand has so far tested over 81,000 samples of which results of over 5,600 are awaited.