Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

More doctors transferred

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State government issued another set of transfer orders on Friday, transferring out 29 Health Service doctors working in various districts to distant stations at Kasaragod, Kannur, Palakkad, Wayanad and Malappuram, for participating in the strike on Thursday.

Sixteen doctors from Thiruvananthapuram had already been issued transfer orders on Thursday evening itself.

All doctors who have been issued transfer notices have been asked to report at their new place of posting by May 19.

In a statement here, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said the Government would show no leniency towards doctors who are paralysing the health system. The doctors, on the other hand, said that they were not going to be intimidated by the vengeful measures of the government. “We are not bothered about the transfer notices or suspensions because we are all ready to quit the system. Let the government run the health system with the National Rural Health Mission,” a KGMOA spokesperson said.

The government has decided to act tough against those doctors posted on contract by the NRHM and medical graduates/postgraduates doing Compulsory Rural Service (CRS), who had taken part in the strike called by government doctors on Thursday.

The State Mission Director of NRHM has directed the District Medical Officers to furnish details of the CRS and NRHM doctors who took part in yesterday’s strike. The disciplinary action against CRS doctors could be that they may be shifted to distant stations or their period of doing CRS -- one year for MBBS graduates, 2 years for postgraduates and six months for DNB/Diploma candidates -- may be extended, a statement issued by Dinesh Arora, Mission Director, NRHM, said.

The government has also threatened that the CRS certificates will not be issued at the end of the term if the medicos took part in any strike during the CRS period.

The NRHM doctors who took part in Thursday’s strike by Kerala Government Medical Officers’ Association will be terminated immediately, the statement said.

There are around 500 doctors doing CRS and about 750 NRHM doctors on contract in the State.

The government has also decided to take seriously, the disruption in the distribution of funds to poor women under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), because of the non-cooperation strike by government doctors.

JSY is a safe motherhood intervention programme under the NRHM. The beneficiaries of the scheme are pregnant women from poor (BPL) families and SC/ST women, who will be given monetary assistance to take care of all delivery expenses.

The Superintendent or Medical officer in charge on the institution are responsible for collecting the cheques and disbursing the JSY amount. However, due to the non-cooperation strike by doctors, many medical officers have not been collecting the cheques.

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