Ad hoc system hampers medical education

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, October 26

One of the most important departments of the state government — the medical education — is seemingly banking upon ad hocism and re-employment for long.

Starting from the post of Director Research Medical Education (DRME) to the principal of government medical colleges (GMC) and other administrative posts, the appointments are either interim or as an additional charge. This culture of ad hocism, experts said, was breeding sycophancy among the staff.

Over the years, the state government has made only temporary appointments to replace the permanent posts which are vacated on superannuation of the staff.

In fact, the newly appointed Patiala GMC principal and Joint DRME are also pro-tem. This unhealthy trend, evidently, has become a permanent affair.

Doctors at the GMCs said the government was intentionally making ad hoc appointments, especially in the administration, to serve their vested interests.

As per the rules, whenever there is any vacancy, a panel of senior-most five professors is sent to the government for the selection. However, over the years, neither the seniority has been fixed nor the procedure has been being followed.

Dr GS Kalyan, professor, GMC, Patiala, said, “In January 2018, the CM ordered streamlining of seniority of the professors, but nothing concrete has been done in this regard. Notably, the incumbent Joint DRME is not even a professor, he was just an additional professor, therefore, he cannot be appointed on the post, as per rules.”

Re-employment problem

As many as 53 members of teaching faculty, currently, are re-employed in the GMCs at Patiala and Amritsar. Recently, the outgoing Patiala GMC principal was given a re-employment order a day after his retirement. The re-employment is said to have upset the regular faculty, who are feeling “cheated” as blocks their promotions. The regular faculty demanded that the government should make the promotions time-bound.

Iqbal Singh, assistant professor, GMC, Patiala, said “As they (re-employed) are not on the permanent roll, therefore, they are not held responsible if anything goes wrong. This is a bad scenario in the GMC as it demoralises the regular staff members who are working hard. Moreover, these persons harass the junior staff.”

However, Principal Secretary DK Tiwari said if they didn’t re-employ the professors, they would lose out on post-graduation seats as each professor has to supervise PG students. He said there was a shortage of professors which was the major reason for re-employment.

Charge, counter-charge

As they (re-employed staff) are not on pay rolls, they are not held responsible if anything goes wrong. Besides, they tend to harass junior staff. This is not good, as it demoralises regular employees.— Iqbal Singh, Asst prof, GMC, Patiala

If the govt doesn’t re-employ professors, it would lose out on PG seats. There is an acute shortage of professors, which is the major reason for re-employment.— DK Tiwari, Principal Secretary