deobhoomidiary

Doctors’ fun, patients’ woes

Chief Minister Harish Rawat candidly admitted that things were far better in the district hospitals in terms of service before Uttarakhand was carved out of UP. He said despite the number of CHCs and PHCs being raised, the quality of service has come down. The doctor crunch being acute, he had authorised the ayurvedic practitioners and the pharmacists to prescribe medicines in the mountainous parts of the State. Dehradun has, for instance, rather innumerable medical facilities, including three medical colleges. More Intriguingly, the facilities at the Assembly and the secretariat have no dearth of doctors whether they are Allopath, Homeopath or Ayurvedic practitioner. They have rather surplus doctors. Most of them are stationed for several years. Although outside these two institutions doctors are being shuffled. Most of them are engaged in pleasing  the high and the mighty. For instance, when the Speaker comes and leaves the assembly the whole band of them rush to welcome and see him off. The question that begs immediate answer is that at a time when the common people across the State are at the receiving end of the acute doctor crunch why the  facilities attached to the premier places be allowed to over-brim with doctorsIJ

Babus groping in the dark

The election drawing near, the Chief Minister’s Office is hyper-active. It is convening meetings without taking the Babus into confidence. The Babus who are being forced to attend  such meetings are naturally a frustrated lot. Take for instance the recent meeting convened by  CMO in the Chief Minister’s residence. It was a meeting with the industrialists. A delegation of the industrialists reached the venue. A bureaucrat who also reached there was surprised. He asked the industrialists about the agenda the meeting was all about. Inquisitive, he also asked them who had invited them. The industrialists said that they had not been intimated about any agenda. But they said that the CMO had invited them. The Babu was crest fallen. He muttered under his breath, half to himself, that such meetings sans a well-defined agenda were ineffectual. He later said the CMO convening such meetings at the drop of its hats is landing the bureaucrats in trouble. “We, you know, hurry to the venue sans any preparation. We just jot down what the political boss pontificates. We have no suggestion to make.

When the political boss was informed  of the Babus being on the sulk mode because of this he shrugs the matter off, placing the onus on the Babus themselves. The Babus are indeed having a tough time.