Dr Satish Pawar, director, health services, Government of Maharashtra, told DNA that around 481 medical officers were under “unauthorised absence,” which meant they were absent from work for three months without sanctioned leave.
Last week, the Pune rural police arrested Dr Madhukar Chandrakant Shinde, a medical practitioner employed by the state government, for allegedly conducting sex determination tests on pregnant women.
Police and health department officials said that Shinde was absconding from duty as a medical officer in Ratnagiri — one of the 481 medical officers employed by the state who have similarly skipped work.
Dr Satish Pawar, director, health services, Government of Maharashtra, told DNA that around 481 medical officers were under “unauthorised absence,” which meant they were absent from work for three months without sanctioned leave.
This includes both, MBBS degree holders and specialists like gynaecologists and anaesthetists. This number of absent medical practitioners’ covers around 7 per cent of the public health department’s about 7,600 sanctioned posts of medical officers.
Pawar said reasons for these medicos staying absent from work included postings in difficult areas like tribal belts and doctors starting their private practice in their present postings, which led to them resisting transfers elsewhere. Moreover, some doctors also preferred to seek postings around large cities rather than the hinterlands.
Pawar said they were terminating the services of 99 such doctors and had announced a one-time amnesty scheme under which around 100 medical officers had offered to resume work. These cases were under consideration and details had been sought about the number of days the doctors were in service, their last postings, service records and reasons for absence.
The termination procedure was underway for the remaining medicos. Incidentally, Shinde had applied under the amnesty scheme, revealed Pawar.
The termination procedure included sending a recommendation to the state government’s general administration department (GAD), which in turn forwarded to the Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) for approval.
Health minister Dr Deepak Sawant said after he had taken over, the state government had terminated the services of 180 of these missing doctors. The state has also approached the Medical Council of India to suspend the license of these doctors to prevent them from conducting their private practice.
Pawar said they had around 500 vacancies for the post of medical officers and considering that these were essential services, the department was posting bonded candidates (students passing out from state and civic run medical colleges who have to serve the department for a stipulated period) and doctors hired on 11-month contracts.
Dr Abhijit More, co-convenor, Jan Arogya Abhiyaan, who had worked as a medical officer at Mulshi near Pune said apart from lack of facilities in rural areas, lack of a proper work culture in the state government also leads to doctors not joining duty.
“There is a dire need to improve the work culture. Even if the government cannot match the salaries paid by the private sector, the pay and facilities must be respectable. These doctors must also be given autonomy in decision making and easier promotions… there are little incentives for people to stay in the system,” said More.
He added that some doctors chose to be absent themselves from work even while on duty and stressed that periodic dialogues between the local communities and senior officials would help crackdown on such errant medicos.
Maharashtra has a three-tier health infrastructure system for people, especially those in rural areas. The primary tier comprises of sub-centres, PHCs and Community Health Centres (CHC), followed by sub-district hospitals and district hospitals. The medical colleges provide tertiary services.
CRACKDOWN AFTER SANGLI
To crack down on unqualified doctors and unregistered centres, Health Minister Dr Deepak Sawant called for the formation of a special squad consisting of officials from deparments like health, revenue, police and the FDA.
This squad will conduct examinations of hospitals in the respective districts and submit reports to the district collectors.
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