KGMU V-C demands no private practice written undertakings from newly appointed docs

Affidavits from 350 on-roll doctors are already with the KGMU administration, and paperwork from the newly appointed 80 are awaited

King George’s Medical University vice-chancellor Sonya Nityanand held a meeting with all 64 department heads of the university on Tuesday. The aim of the meeting was to ensure that all doctors abstain from private practice. Department heads have also been asked to collect written undertakings from the 80 new joinees, stating the same.

The KGMU campus in Lucknow (HT File Photo)

In light of the recent cases of doctors of KGMU and other government hospitals running or referring patients to private facilities in the city, the university authorities have decided to take immediate and strict action against those flouting this rule.

These affidavits will finally be presented before the Allahabad high court at the next hearing, in a case of KGMU doctors indulging in private practice.

According to the Uttar Pradesh Government Doctors (Allopathic) Restriction on Private Practice Rules, doctors employed by the government are not permitted to practise privately while holding a government job.

At the time of joining, all doctors produce an affidavit to this effect, therefore, for doctors joining new, a written and signed undertaking is being collected, said KGMU media cell head Dr KK Singh. Affidavits from 350 on-roll doctors are already with the KGMU administration, and paperwork from the newly appointed 80 are awaited, he said.

In January, a directive by the principal secretary, health and medical education, Partha Sarathi Sen Sharma, had asked all medical institutions to conduct a complete survey of their staff and ensure that no government employee was engaged in private practice.

During the term of the previous vice-chancellor, 12 doctors had been similarly taken to task, against whom video evidence had been collected - while some of them resigned from the hospital and took up private practice full time.

Dr Nityanand has said, “If a complaint of private practice is received against any doctor, strict and legal action will be taken against them.”