On 21 September this year, the Odisha Health and Family Welfare department issued a notification allowing pharmacists to treat minor ailments and dispense drugs for certain diseases at Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the state that are managed by a single doctor or without a doctor. He is not oblivious to the shortage of doctors, but pointed out that this shortage in rural areas was supposed to be addressed by mandatory posting of doctors for a few years. In Improving Retention of Health Workers in Rural and Remote Areas: Case Studies from the WHO South-East Asia Region, a case study of this measure, it was reported that the intervention resulted in an increase in availability of MBBS doctors by 207 per cent, specialists by 1300 per cent, and nurses by 1240 per cent from 2009 to 2018.