The Hindu : New Delhi News : AIIMS workers protest against `ills in the system'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 16, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

AIIMS workers protest against `ills in the system'

Staff Reporter

Karamchari Union seeks Minister's intervention

NEW DELHI: After reports of illegal sale of corneas, siphoning off drugs and equipments, it is now the turn of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) workers to express their displeasure at the state of the affairs at the institute to the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Anbumani Ramadoss, and its director, P. Venugopal.

Pointing out that during the past one year, the institute has come under focus for some scandal or the other, the Karamchari Union recently dashed off an angry letters of protest against the working of this premier institute.

"Be it employment scam, siphoning off drugs, misuse of drugs, transfer and sale of organs from the institute to private hospitals, blatant misuse of institute facilities for private purposes by senior officials - all the scandals continue without any check and it is often highlighted by the media or investigating agencies from outside,'' complained the president of the Karamchari Union, Sat Prakash.

The letter, which has also been submitted to AIIMS director, noted that "the condition of the hospital and the patient-care services has touched an all time low and the place is now being run like a private charitable hospital where the patients have no rights. Accountability is foreign to our system''.

Accusing the institute of running a `closed administration completely devoid of transparency', the Karamchari Union said: "We have added in our letter that employees are being treated as outsiders and even faculty colleagues have not been spared of this attitude.''

Expressing the hope that the Union Minister would look into the matter and set in motion the process of `treating the ills in the system', the workers have added that woes of patients have only doubled. "The system here is such that harassed patients cannot dream of contacting hospital officials in the event of difficulty and with neither the institute's employees, including faculty members having access to the authorities there is often no way to address their day-to-day problems,'' said a worker.

"We want to know why such wrong-doings are not discovered at the institute level itself and action taken? '' asked Sat Prakash.

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