Parliament: Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammad Nasim on Thursday said the government as part of fulfilling vacant posts with the department of health has appointed 12,986 doctors in the last six years.

"We have posted 9,478 nurses at different hospitals for providing improved services to patients at hospitals and the work on recruiting 3,000 midwives is going on," he said while replying to a tabled question from treasury bench member Begum Hazera Khatun in the Parliament.

The minister informed the House that activities on filling in vacant posts of III and IV class employees are going on. 

He said, "We have started operation of 13,136 community clinics to reach healthcare service at the doorsteps of rural people and 13,114 community healthcare providers have been engaged for the purpose."

He said the government is providing 30 items of medicine to patients free of cost along with two kinds of family planning products and added that the authorities have upgraded 12 nursing institutes to nursing colleges for improving nursing education. The government has arranged PhD, MSc and specialized training courses for the nurses, he added. 

So far 30,000 satellite clinics have been launched to provide services to people at the grassroots, Nasim said.