The Government Medical College, Ernakulam, could become yet another sore point when a team from the Medical Council of India visits the institution. Of the 148 posts created for doctors, 11 are still vacant because as many as 15 doctors had left the institution over the last one year or so on account of uncertainty of employment in the institution.
However, the effort of the Director of Medical Education (DME) to transfer doctors from other medical colleges to fill the vacancies has met with stiff opposition from the doctors in the institution. The teachers have served a notice for academic strike on May 31. Human resource management at the institution had been the most difficult part of the integration process that had begun since the government took over the college.
Though 202 doctors are required at the medical college to retain the recognition of the Union Health Ministry, the stand-alone status of the college at the time of integration into the government fold in 2013 makes it difficult to transfer doctors here as per the agreement.
However, the teachers at the medical college are upset that the senior officials in the Health are going beyond the agreement during a power vacuum period of the elections and posting people at their will. It is a breach of trust with the employees at the Ernakulam college, said C. K. Nazeem, president of the Cochin Medical College Teachers Association. The posts were created in the college here to accommodate the people in the college, she said.
Till 2018, the government can continue to take in people on contract to fill in these posts. This would save the doctors in the institution losing out on promotion chances too, she said. However, the Medical Education Department has transferred a doctor from another medical college citing that the students and college should not suffer. But Dr. Nazeem said when the transferred person is set to retire in less than a month it does not fulfil any of the aspects. It is only a ploy to get the 11 vacant posts into the DME’s pool, she said.
The college has no doctors as professors in Anatomy, Biochemistry, Community Medicine and Forensic Medicine.
“We require more doctors than the 11 vacant posts,” said Dr. Nazeem. The government can either create more posts or take in doctors on contract, she said.
