Taking a serious note of Punjab Government’s plans to withdraw non-practice allowance given to the Government doctors across the State, the Punjab Civil Medical Services Association (PCMSA) on Friday decided to oppose the move.
The Association maintained that its delegation would soon meet the state Health Minister to raise the issue and to oppose the move.
Terming the decision as “anti-people” and “anti-doctors” step, PCMSA president Dr Gagandeep Singh said: “NPA is given to the doctors for their long study of the medical education which leads them for their late entry to the government services.
Also, they engage in tough and high-risk duties like emergency duty, VIP duty, and postmortem duties”
“Allowing the private practice at the hospital campus will result in extra burden on the poor and downtrodden masses of the State. Also, it will be a step towards privatization of the health services across the State,” said PCMSA senior vice-president Dr Gagandeep Shergill.
He added that the allowance of the private practice will be a setback for on-call emergency specialty services, especially the mother and children health services will be the worst hit as the doctors will not prefer to go on-call specialty care duties. The state is already facing crunch of specialist doctors and it will deepen the crisis further, he said. “Most of the government doctors are dedicated to their government services. It will be a setback to their dedication.
And those, who have served the department for many years and never did the private practice, will be forced to resign crippling the public sector health services across the State,” said the Association’s organizing secretary Dr Indervir Singh Gill.