Docs to move court against rural postings

Around 270 doctors, who work at 14 state-run medical colleges, are planning to move court to contest the state government’s decision to send them to rural areas to fill vacant posts in primary health centers and rural hospitals. Neha Bhayana reports.

Around 270 doctors, who work at 14 state-run medical colleges, are planning to move court to contest the state government’s decision to send them to rural areas to fill vacant posts in primary health centers and rural hospitals.

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The doctors, who are employed by the public health department, work as work as medical superintendents, medical officers and resident medical officers in medical colleges. They handle administrative work, handle medico-legal cases and conduct post mortems.

The state health department had decided to transfer these doctors as 2,700 of the 7,218 posts for medical officers at rural health facilities are vacant.

The doctors, who are united under the banner of the Maharashtra State Gazetted Medical Officers Organisation, had gone on mass casual leave for two days in April to protest the decision because most of them have already served in rural and naxal-affected areas before getting to work in urban tertiary hospitals like JJ hospital or GT or Cama hospital.

He added that many of the doctors had been given lower posts than the ones they occupied.“A paediatrician from St George Hospital has been asked to work as an anaesthetist in Nagpur. One doctor has been transferred to Buldhana while his wife has been moved to Sindhudurg,” he said.

The medical education department has made temporary arrangements to fill the posts that will fall vacant. “We are suffering because of the tussle between the medical education and health departments,” said a doctor.