The Hindu : Kerala News : Doctors stay away from meets called by DMOs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 07, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala

Doctors stay away from meets called by DMOs

Staff Reporter

Thiruvananthapuram: The government doctors stayed away from the monthly health review and planning meeting called by the District Medical Officers in all districts for the second consecutive month ever since they began their non-cooperation strike on October 1.

None of the doctors were present at the meetings to present or discuss reports and only the health supervisors and some field workers turned up. The reports of field activities were not signed by doctors, making it impossible for the DMOs to accept these as authentic.

The doctors have been staying away from all the field duties, including immunisation programmes, family planning and welfare activities such as sterilisation camps and national health programmes, as part of their non-cooperation strike.

However, what has now emerged as a major concern for the district health administration is the smooth conduct of the third round of the Mass Drug Administration for the elimination of Filariasis, a national programme which is slated to be held in 11 districts on November 15.

“We are quite worried that the doctors’ strike could affect the coverage of the programme because supervision by the doctors is very important,” a senior Health Department official said.

She said that while it would take some time for the reports to be evaluated, the immunisation status and sterilisation targets in the periphery have been hit as doctors have been unavailable to conduct outreach programmes.

The last time the doctors stayed away from public health duties in the field, that too for a period of six months over the same issue, the impact had been severe. The State’s target in the Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) had shown a drop of 40 per cent, which also brought back the resurgence of many vaccine-preventable diseases.

It is the doctors who travel long distances to reach coastal, rural areas and the estate belt to ensure that none is left out of immunisation programmes. People would naturally drop out of UIP, if they had to travel far from their homes vaccinations.

The monthly meetings of medical officers and health field staff, called by the DMOs, are crucial for the public health system. These are called to review health activities the previous month and to plan programmes for the coming month.

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