Punjab govt discontinues services of five super specialist doctors
The Punjab government has discontinued services of five super specialist doctors after they failed to report on duty at the super specialty centre of Government Rajindra Hospital, Patiala.
As per hospital authorities, the said doctors kept making false promises about joining duty since their appointment. Delay in their joining has forced the state government to hold up five out of eight super specialist departments from being operational.
Sources said that lack of infrastructure, higher pay scale at private medical institutions, and burden of clerical work along with delay in promotions at government hospitals have resulted in less doctors showing interest in joining government medical services.
The super specialist doctors were originally supposed to join the cardiology, nephrology, gastroenterology, endocrinology and neurology departments at the super specialty centre of Rajindra hospital in October last year.
In the absence of these super specialists, the state government has so far been able to start just the urology, neurosurgery and cardiothoracic departments of the newly inaugurated centre.
Dr Harjinder Singh, principal of Government Medical College and Rajindra Hospital, said that the state government had selected these doctors to run the said super specialty departments at the newly built centre. They had even received the appointment letters from government a few months back. But the doctors failed to join the hospital.
“They continuously kept making excuses and false promises to defer their joining. They had sought a two-month extension to join the hospital. However, even after that they failed to join the said department. And now the extension period is way beyond exceeded. This has caused in us the government having to discontinue their services,” he said.
“These doctors have wasted government’s time and caused delay in starting five major departments at the super specialty centre. We do not have any provision of black listing such doctors otherwise we would have done that as well. However, we will still make sure that they are not able to join any government services in future,” he added.
A hospital official, pleading anonymity, said, “These doctors are earning ₹3-4 lakh per month at private institutions while government is paying them just around ₹1.75 lakh, which is why they are not motivated to join here. Also, government sector lacks in infrastructure and supporting staff. Besides, there is delay in getting promotions at government institutions. They get promotions after seven years in private sector while the waiting period is much more in government sector.”