West Bengal will end the extended Durga Puja holiday practice for staff at state-run hospitals from 2027 and introduce duty rosters to maintain round-the-clock healthcare services during the festive period, Health Minister Sharadwat Mukhopadhyay said on Friday.
The new arrangement will apply from Saptami to Dashami, the principal days of Durga Puja, and is intended to ensure that government hospitals continue providing emergency and other medical services throughout the festival. Mukhopadhyay said the health department could not follow the extended holiday pattern applicable in some other government offices because hospitals must operate continuously.
“ This practice will end from next year,” the minister said, referring to an unwritten arrangement that he said had existed since Independence. He added that the health department was an emergency department and that people had to receive services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Under the proposed system, hospitals will prepare duty rosters covering the festive period. Doctors and nurses will not have a fixed roster, but will be required to remain available at hospitals as needed, according to the minister. The announcement did not specify how individual rosters would be structured or how staffing levels would be determined at different hospitals.
The decision followed reports that doctors and other officials had remained absent from hospitals during the festive period, with allegations that some employees had taken leave without permission. Mukhopadhyay met health department officials on Friday and expressed displeasure over the reported absences.
“Those who are currently on leave have also been directed to join work from today,” he said. The instruction was issued alongside the announcement that the extended holiday practice would be discontinued from 2027.
The move places hospital staffing during Durga Puja within a broader administrative question: how public health facilities can maintain essential services when demand, employee leave and festival-related disruptions coincide. State-run hospitals are expected to provide continuous emergency care, making staff availability a direct operational issue for patients who depend on the public health system.
The minister described the reported absence of hospital employees as a serious matter and said government employees were accountable to the public. “The health department is an emergency department. We do not have any festivals. We have to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
The health department’s next step is to implement the duty-roster system at state-run hospitals during Saptami to Dashami in the 2027 Durga Puja period. Details of the roster and the arrangements for doctors, nurses and other hospital staff were not provided in the announcement.
