Posting and transfer : The experiences of public sector doctors in two Indian states

Journal article


Purohit, Bhaskar and Hill, Peter S.. (2023). Posting and transfer : The experiences of public sector doctors in two Indian states. Health Policy and Planning. 38(10), p. 1121–1130. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad031
AuthorsPurohit, Bhaskar and Hill, Peter S.
Abstract

Posting and Transfer (PT) refers to deployment of the health workforce in ways that ensure appropriate numbers and distribution. Although PT is a crucial aspect of health workforce governance, it remains under-researched from the viewpoint of implementation, health workforce and governance. The aim of this paper is to examine public sector doctors’ experience of their initial postings, in the context of local policy from two Indian states. We carried out a review search for policy documentation. A total 61 in-depth interviews were conducted in both states with 33 doctors, as subjects of the study. There were 28 key informant (KI) interviews of health administrators and other policy actors to understand their perspectives of PT policies and implementation. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. Job histories were constructed from the doctors’ interviews to track their experience with the PT system, and analysed using location, duration and postings. Despite search for state policy for PT, we were unable to identify any policy documentation. However, participants referred to PT practices that suggested expectations of what the poliy meant to them. These expectations were corroborated by KI, and the job histories and interview data enabled the authors to construct a series of norms, interpreted as evidence of implied policy. The main norms identified relate to service need, native place, request, gender and posting duration. The norm related to state need had strong face validity, while other norms based on request, gender and duration were less consistent in application. In the absence of documented policies, the construction of norms from the qualitative data proved useful to examine the dynamics of health workers’ interactions with the initial PT systems This construction of norms provides a methodological innovation allowing health policy and systems researchers to compensate for the absence of documented policy in exploring PT functions.

Keywordsundocumented policy; posting; transfer; health workforce; norms
Year2023
JournalHealth Policy and Planning
Journal citation38 (10), p. 1121–1130
PublisherOxford University Press
ISSN1460-2237
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czad031
PubMed ID37140240
PubMed Central IDPMC10684983
Web address (URL)https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/38/10/1121/7151567
Open accessPublished as non-open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range1121–1130
FunderPublic Health Research Institute (PHRI)
Department of Science and Technology (DST)
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online04 May 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted03 May 2023
Deposited10 Oct 2023
Additional information

© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. All rights reserved.

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