Two doctors at the Upgraded Primary Healthcare Centre (UPHC) at Ponnai near Katpadi in Vellore district have been recommended for transfer on the charge of dereliction of duty. One of them is the Block Medical Officer (BMO).
The decision came on Wednesday after Minister for Health Ma. Subramanian and Minister for Water Resources Duraimurugan paid a surprise visit to the centre on Tuesday. The doctors are BMO Rani Nirmala and duty doctor Pradeep Kumar.
“We have recommended the transfer of the two staff members at the UPHC. We are waiting for the orders,” Dr. P. Banumathi, Deputy Director of Health Services (Vellore), told The Hindu. However, when contacted, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine T.S. Selvavinayagam said, “We will do it as per procedure.”
Around 11 a.m. Tuesday, a team of senior officials, including Collector P. Kumaravel Pandian and elected representatives and led by the Ministers, inspected the centre. It found that the centre lacked adequate rooms for staff members and visitors.
When Mr. Subramanian enquired about the availability of medicines, Dr. Rani Nirmala said the centre had enough stocks of medicines. She also said X-Ray equipment was unavailable.
Then, he asked for anti-snake venom (ASV) for treatment of snake bites. The staff members admitted that the stock had run out. Upset at the vague replies given by the Block Medical Officer and others, Mr. Subramanian directed officials to take action against them. The team spent around half-an-hour at the centre.
The centre at Ponnai is one of the 22 UPHCs in the district. Each UPHC has 30 beds and at least five duty doctors and adequate number of nurses. Health officials said they had received many complaints from residents of surrounding villages about the absence of duty doctors and lack of medicines.
Many a time, the villagers had to shift the snake bite victims to the Government Medical College Hospital in Vellore for lack of medicines at the centre, officials claimed.
Associations flay move
Doctors’ associations have strongly opposed the decision to transfer the two doctors citing inadequacies in a primary health centre (PHC) during an inspection by Health Minister Ma. Subramanian and Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan. The associations have issued statements condemning the way the doctors were treated. Several doctors took to social media to register their objection.
In a statement, M. Akilan, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Medical Officers Association (TNMOA), said it was disappointing that the [Health ] Minister decided to transfer a block medical officer and medical officer of the Ponnai PHC, holding them responsible for the lack of ASV and X-ray equipment, and the dilapidated state of the PHC building.
The association pointed out that providing ASV and X-ray equipment was the job of Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation (TNMSC), and it was the responsibility of the deputy director of health services (DDHS) to ensure their availability. The Public Works Department should be questioned for not assessing the PHC building’s condition.
The TNMOA demanded that the decision to transfer the doctors should be withdrawn, and measures must be taken to procure the required drugs and equipment. Condemning the decision to transfer the medical officers, the Service Doctors and Post Graduates Association (SDPGA) said the ASV was unavailable in the PHCs for several months. Questioning whether it was the administrative failure of the DDHS and Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, it said: “Nearly 2,000 posts of medical officers of PHCs have been lying vacant for almost a year and nothing has been done to fill it. Instead, the very minimal workforce of medical officers are being repeatedly targeted to hide the administrative deficiencies by the Health Department,” it added.
SDPGA president P. Saminathan added: “Doctors are made scapegoats for administrative failures. The deficiencies are not due to the doctors but due to administrative failure that has led to short supply of drugs.”
Noting that the senior Minister [Mr. Duraimurugan] had said that the doctors should not be posted in their native places and be transferred to Kanniyakumari, the association called it “administrative high-handedness”. A transfer without proper inquiry is condemnable, it said.
