News
Govt sends ‘last call’ to absent doctors before possible termination
Srinagar, July 10: Health and Medical Education Department has given a “last-call notice” to the absent doctors for joining their duties.
Taking a note of their unauthorised absence, the department has directed 37 doctors to resume their duties within 15 days or suffer termination.
“The list of unauthorisedly absent doctors were furnished by Director Health Services Jammu and Director Health Services Kashmir in November 2017 to the Administrative Department where in it was intimated that despite serving the notices to these doctors, they have remained absent from duties,” reads the order issued on July 9.
“…after examination of the cases in the Administrative Department, it has been decided to give last and final opportunity to these doctors to report back for duties in their respective directorates within a period of 15 days positively.”
Unauthorised absence of doctors is cited among the principal reasons behind dearth of medics in the hospitals, as no appointments take place on the posts left occupied by them.
In the last two years, over 150 doctors have been terminated by the government for remaining “absent from duties” in Jammu and Kashmir.
The government had earlier sent notices to around 200 medicos working abroad to “attend their duties or they will be terminated from services”.
Some have returned back and joined their duties.
An official of the department said notices were issued to all absentees.
“Most of them didn’t reply to these notices following which the government has terminated over 150 from their services since 2016,” the official said.
The official said these doctors have shifted to other states or gone aboard and started practice in private hospitals without informing the department.
According to official sources, around 3,000 gazetted and non-gazetted posts have been lying vacant in the department.
The doctor patient ratio in J&K is 1:2104 as against the recommendations of World Health Organization (WHO) of 1:1000, which is grossly in-sufficient.
Srinagar, Apr 21: National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah Sunday said Congress leaders from Jammu and Kashmir are not allowed to take decisions on their own.
“When we were in an alliance with Congress, I noticed it myself that even for minor decisions they have to seek permission from party leadership in New Delhi,” Omar told reporters on the sidelines of a party function in South Kashmir.
However, Omar said, NC candidates for Parliamentary Elections if elected will not have to take “dictation” from New Delhi.
“Not only New Delhi but even National Conference top leadership. Our Parliamentarians will just have to represent the voice of people of Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Omar said people should come out to vote as boycotting elections will only help the BJP and RSS.
He said it was unfortunate that Election Commision of India was ignoring repeated violations of Model Code of Conduct by Prime Minister Narendara Modi and top BJP leadership.
Srinagar, Apr 21: Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti Sunday said Congress and BJP are always on the same page when it comes to “national interest”.
She said whether it was Ghulam Nabi Azad’s transfer of forest land to Amarnath Shrine Board in 2008 or the 2013 hanging of Afzal Guru or the BJP’s poll plank of scrapping Article 370, both parties considered national interest to be of paramount importance.
Only regional parties like PDP were concerned about the interests of Jammu and Kashmir, she told reporters on the sidelines of a party function in South Kashmir.
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister also said no religion should be blamed for terror acts.
New Delhi, Apr 21: The Health Ministry is grappling with paucity of meningitis vaccines for Haj pilgrims as the only firm manufacturing them was asked to stop production last year after contamination was detected in their oral polio vaccines.
According to sources in the Health Ministry, the only firm which manufactured the vaccines and provided it to the government, was asked to stop production of all human vaccines after type-2 polio virus contamination was detected in oral polio vaccines.
Following the ban on the Ghaziabad-based pharmaceutical company Biomed Pvt Ltd, the ministry is now looking for options to arrange the vaccines in time for vaccinating the pilgrims, the sources said.
Around 1.27 lakh people are expected to go for the annual Haj pilgrimage in July this year for which the ministry will have to arrange for at least 1.47 Lakh doses.
Extra vaccines are kept as some are rendered ineffective in the process of delivery to the states.
The Health Ministry is already in talks with two firms which import the vaccines, the sources said.
Those going to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of Umra or pilgrimage are required to submit a certificate of vaccination with the quadrivalent (ACYW 135) vaccine against meningitis, proving the vaccine was administered no more than 3 years ago and no less than 10 days before arrival in the country.
Biomed Pvt Ltd was a licensed indigenous manufacturer for Meningococcal Polysaccharide vaccine while two firms M/s Sanofi Pastuer India Pvt Lt, Mumbai and M/s GlaxoSmithkline Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Mumbai are importers for quadrivalent Meningcoccal Meningitis Conjugate Vaccine in the country.
“Earlier with Biomed Pvt Ltd providing the vaccines, government spent Rs 250 for each vaccine but now if they have to buy from companies which import the vaccines, they may have to shell out around Rs 1500 per dose. The Health Ministry is already in talks with the two firms which import the vaccines,” the sources said.
Biomed Pvt Ltd was directed to stop the manufacture, sale and distribution of all human vaccines including the Quadrivalent Meningococcal Meningitis vaccine aftertype-2 polio virus was found in the sewage and stool samples in Maharashtra, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh in September last year.
The polio drops were sent for testing which confirmed that some of them were contaminated with type-2 virus, a strain believed to have been eradicated in 2016.
The managing director of Biomed Pvt Ltd., which was supplying polio vaccines for only government-run immunisation programmes, was arrested after the central drug regulator filed a complaint and an FIR was registered.
The destruction of traces of type-2 polio virus was ordered by the central drug regulator to all manufacturers in 2016.