Medical officers of Madhya Pradesh are up in the arms against Principal Secretary of the Public Health and Family Welfare department Praveer Krishna for having launched a drive against the health employees.
On Wednesday, during inspection of Government hospitals, the Principal Secretary had suspended four doctors along with six health department employees on the charges of negligence in work. Suspended doctors included Katju Hospital and Bairagarh hospital Superintendents.
Against the action, the medical officer called on Water Resources Minister Jayant Malaiya on Thursday and submitted memorandum demanding immediate roll back of suspension orders.
Condemning the health department’s move, Madhya Pradesh Medical Officers Association President Dr lalit Shrivastava told ‘The Pioneer’ that a wrong message is being spread among the citizens about medical practitioners by wrongfully suspending them. Medical officers told Malaiya that suspension of medical officers was wrong, because as according to rules, show-cause notice has to be served initially to the employee and if the employees do not give satisfactory response then only employees can be suspended.
Medical officers also met Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta on Thursday, Gupta also condemned the abrupt suspension of medical officers. Dr Shrivastava further said that a stressful and torturous environment is being created for the medical practitioners in the State by pressurising them. Health department is not taking any action over demands for providing better facilities to medical practitioners, but immediate and strict actions are taken against them even over trivial issues.
He further said that a meeting of medical officers is scheduled on June 16 in which further course of action will be decided, but Dr Shrivastava clarified that if suspension orders are not revoked then medical practitioners will initiate aggressive movement against the department.
It is worth mentioning that in last six months over 600 Health department employees have been suspended and over 40 medical officers have been suspended in the same duration. Principal Secretary Praveer Krishna was unavailable to comment over the issue.