Doc writes to MCI on staff crunch, gets notice

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, February 27

A letter to the Medical Council of India (MCI), allegedly written by a faculty member of Srinagar Medical College exposing the shortage of faculty members in the college, has left the college authorities red-faced.

The faculty member had urged the MCI authorities to cancel the affiliation of the college until the conditions improved.

Instead the first response of the medical college authorities has been issuing a show-cause notice to the member and terming it a case of indiscipline. “I have served a show-cause notice on the person. The matter is still being looked into,” said Prof CMS Rawat, Principal of the medical college.

Sources claim that the matter came to light after the MCI reportedly informed the medical college about the letter, questioning them about the faculty deployment.

Since the inception of the medical college, it has been routinely plagued with problems of lack of facilities for patients and shortage of faculty members for medical students.

The college does not have a single faculty member at the Radiology Department. Usually, such shortages lead to stern action by the MCI.

The condition in other teaching departments is also no different. The Department of Surgery and the Department of Medicine are facing 10 per cent and 40 per cent staff shortage while there is 10 per cent shortage at paediatric and the gynaecology departments.

This is affecting the quality of education being imparted to students and services rendered by the hospital to patients in and around Srinagar.

So much so the patients prefer to receive treatment at the Combined Medical Institute or come down to Dehradun. While accepting the shortage in the medical college, Prof Rawat said, the college had been regularly sending the reports of the status of the faculty to the higher authorities.

“The reports are regularly sent to the Governor and the MCI so there is nothing to hide. We do have shortage of faculty and this happens due to the resignation by members. The Department of Radiology head had tendered resignation. As of now, we have a technician who is taking care of the X-ray and CT Scan. Everyday 200 X-rays and 5-10 CT scans are carried,” said Rawat.