E-Paper
PMS doctors up in arms
Provincial Medical Service (PMS) doctors are up in arms against the usual practice of getting their inspection and attendance report counter signed by gram pradhans, block pramukhs, block development officers (BDOs) and village development officers (VDOs). They want the GO stating these conditions, to be withdrawn by the principal secretary (health).
Provincial Medical Service (PMS) doctors are up in arms against the usual practice of getting their inspection and attendance report counter signed by gram pradhans, block pramukhs, block development officers (BDOs) and village development officers (VDOs). They want the GO stating these conditions, to be withdrawn by the principal secretary (health).
The PMS Association (PMSA) has also demanded from the government to increase more posts under zero posting (period of posting not considered for transfer) in every district of UP. In support of their three-point demand, which also includes stopping frequent transfer of PMS doctors and postings soon after promotion, the PMSA central office-bearers would stage a dharna at the office of director general (health) on April 22, informed Dr DP Mishra, state president PMSA.
Talking to the mediapersons here on Sunday Dr Mishra said due to mismanagement and irregularities in the transfer and posting as many as 600 PMS doctors have applied for VRS. With 11,391 approved posts of PMS doctors it is one of the largest gazetted service cadre in UP. But it was quite unfortunate of the government to ask Gram Pradhan/ VDO and block pramukh/BDO to counter sign the attendance and inspection report of doctors posted at the PHCs and CHCs respectively.
Such orders should be immediately withdrawn as it was very humiliating and may cause Gram Pradhans to create undue pressure on the government doctors. "Moreover the pay-scale of BDO and VDO is much less as compared to CMO, Dy CMO or even medical officers," he added.
Protesting against the 'pick and choose' policy of State Government, Dr Mishra said one year after the promotion under cadre review the medical officers were not provided postings despite 2,100 posts lying vacant in UP. More than half of the approved posts of ACMOs are lying vacant in Allahabad, Lucknow, Meerut, Kanpur and Varanasi. "This has badly affected the national health programmes including pulse polio for which the medical officers alone cannot be blamed," he pointed out.
Dr Jai Singh, state general secretary PMSA, said that more posts should be created under zero posting in UP to provide specialist services to all the patients for a period of time. Such posts also need to be created in the district hospitals.
"What's more, with the abolition of 668 Level II senior physician's posts in district hospitals, only senior doctors mostly above 55 years of age have remained at the hospitals who are unable to handle the large inflow of patients efficiently. So the government need to rethink its transfer strategy," he said. Dr Arun Kumar, Dr Sujit Singh and other PMS office-bearers also addressed the press conference.
