As Kashmir’s SKIMS loses autonomy, its employees face first crises
At the same time, the non-gazetted employees of Kashmir’s SKIMS was barred from availing any holidays in the last 10 days of March as the authorities feared it may impede the patient care and day to day functioning of the hospital.
The non-gazetted employees of Kashmir’s premier health institute, Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), are a worried lot after the hospital administration stopped their monthly allowance from January which they would get in lieu of attending duties on official holidays.
At the same time, the non-gazetted staff was barred from availing any holidays in the last 10 days of March as the authorities feared it may impede the patient care and day to day functioning of the hospital.
The development comes months after the Jammu and Kashmir government took away the autonomy of SKIMS following the changes in J&K after the revocation of Article 370 in 2019.
The finance department of the institute has stopped paying the non-gazetted staff, including paramedics, doormen, cleaning staff and others the monthly allowance equivalent to two-and-a-half days pay, in lieu of attending duties on gazette holidays, from this year which they have been getting for the past three decades. It said it did it on the directions of government.
When the staff had decided to take the gazetted holidays in the third week of March, the hospital administration cancelled all holidays from March 20 to 31.
“For the past three decades, we have been getting this allowance as are the other emergency services like police, public health engineering and the power department. But they have stopped ours for no apparent reason,” said an employee.
He said that the hospital authorities have no idea how it is going to affect the functioning of the hospital if the non-gazetted staff avail holidays at a time.
“The hospital remains open 24*7 and the patients know that the hospital is open on all days except for the closure of OPD on Sunday. Now if a person working in a lab chooses to take off who will go for tests of patients. Who will open the cabin of doctors? Who will go for the cleanliness of the hospital,” he said.
The employees said that many of them wanted to avail the UT holidays on March 21 and 22 but were barred from doing so.
“We thought when we don’t get the allowance then we have a right to avail holidays but then director SKIMS issued another order saying no holidays till March 31,” said another staff member.
“This is going to be a real cause of concern, a major inconvenience to the patients, if the issue is not resolved soon,” he said.
The SKIMS administration, on the other hand, said that the allowance was stopped on the orders of the government after the accountant general’s audit as some employees were “not eligible” for such allowance.
Director Finance SKIMS, Sheikh Intikhab said that they have formed a committee which will reframe a list of employees who are eligible for such allowance and then write to the government.
“We will send the list of employees to the government, those who are eligible and non-eligible for such allowance, and will wait for their directions,” he said.
The hospital in February was divested of its autonomy after the general administration department of J&K government informed that it has been brought under the control of the Health and Medical Education Department. The hospital administration was asked to submit all matters, proposals, case files for consideration or approval of the competent authority through the Health and Medical Education Department.
The order had caused an upheaval among the medical fraternity as well as political leaders with National Conference, whose leader Sheikh Abdullah laid its foundation, saying that the snatching away of its autonomy undermines the hospital’s identity and purpose and would affect its functioning.