ALL THE city office bearers of the Provincial Medical and Health Services (PMHS) association were elected unopposed. This has happened because a large number of PMHS doctors either did not know about the date of the election or they were not told about it.
The eight elected office bearers are from UHM, Dufferin and KPM hospitals. There is no member in the association to represent the doctors of Primary Health Centres and Community Health Centres. Besides, none of the newly elected PMHS office bearers are acquainted with the number of members of the PMHS in the city.
Instead of electing seven members, as per the norms, eight members have been elected unopposed. On April 27, a four-line advertisement was published in two Hindi dailies mentioning that the last date for filing nomination for the PMSH election would be April 28. The advertisement also stated that elections would be held on May 2. Reacting to the arbitrary election, some doctors alleged those who had interest in becoming office bearer of the PMHS held the elections in this manner.
When an office bearer, entrusted with the responsibility of editor of PMHS association was asked how he was elected, he said, “One day, I reached UHM Hospital and some of my friends forced me to file the nomination as they were not getting any contestants.”
{{/usCountry}}When an office bearer, entrusted with the responsibility of editor of PMHS association was asked how he was elected, he said, “One day, I reached UHM Hospital and some of my friends forced me to file the nomination as they were not getting any contestants.”
{{/usCountry}}The new members are: Dr AK Nigam (city president), Dr Jyotsana Tewari (vice president), Dr Mahesh Chandra Tewari and Dr K Swaroop (vice-presidents general), Dr Vipul Singh (secretary). Similarly, Dr Rajeev Khare, Dr Rajendra Kumar and Dr SC Pathak were elected to other posts.
When each of them was asked about number of doctors associated with PMHS, they looked at the newly elected president Dr AK Nigam. However, Dr Nigam candidly admitted that it was difficult to tell the exact number of members as they were new. “As nobody was taking initiative to conduct PMHS elections in the city, we held it with the consent of the members here,” Dr Nigam added.
Some senior members of the PMHS, who were not informed about the elections, have expressed resentment at the manner the election was conducted. However, they could not muster enough courage to raise the issue before the State PMHS Association electoral officers.
This was indicative of the fact that there is no unity among the PHMS members. Even the retired doctors, who, too, are the members of the PMHS and have the voting rights have been ignored by their juniors. Most of the retired PMHS doctors are still unaware about the election being held in the city regularly.