Proposed extension of faculty retirement age opposed

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, October 1

Resident Doctors Association (RDA) and HP Medical Officers Association (HPMOA) have joined hands against the Health Department’s move to increase the retirement age from the present 62 years to 65 or 67 years for the teaching faculty of the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital (IGMC), Shimla, and Dr Rajindra Prasad Government Medical College, Tanda.

The doctor bodies opposed the move on the ground that it would block both recruitment and promotion avenues of young doctors that, in turn, may turn state’s two medical colleges into “asylums for retired doctors and may impact innovations in health care and hamper delivery of health services to patients”.

Though the Cabinet is yet to take a final call on the increase in the retirement age, the RDA and HPMOA slammed Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur’s statement that “retirement age could be increased to 65 or 67 years as the state would face shortage of professors to make the proposed three medical colleges in the state functional”.

Meanwhile, the HP chapter of Indian Medical Association (IMA), which is dominated by the senior faculty members, has batted for the proposal, on the ground that AIIMS and PGI have already increased the age for the faculty members to 65 years.

HPMOA president Dr Sant Lal Sharma and state general secretary Dr JN Chauhan rejected the IMA’s plea and said the decision was anti-state and anti-teachers as over 200 eligible medical officers were awaiting promotions.

Raising the age of superannuation would dishearten the youths who want to enter the profession. Post-graduate doctors would be denied timely promotions. Due to lack of opportunity to be promoted as assistant professor, the young specialists will prefer private colleges or will go to other state. This will result in brain drain from the state, they said.

RDA president Dr Rishi Nabh and general secretary Dr Sandeep said the RDA opposed the move and urged the government to maintain the retirement age at 62 years. The increase had already blocked promotion prospects of junior doctors since 2011, they pointed out.