Slot system already conceived: PGI to HC

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 11

A day after the Punjab and Haryana High Court widened the scope of a writ petition to minimise difficulties faced by patients coming to the PGI from adjoining states, the institute today informed the Bench that a digital slot system for outdoor patients had already been conceived. Besides, 170 additional posts of teaching staff had been sanctioned. Of these, the recruitment process to fill 134 posts had commenced. A five-storeyed parking lot, too, had been prescribed.

Appearing before the Division Bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu, the institute’s Deputy Director (Administration) submitted that only 550 posts of teaching staff were sanctioned to begin with. However, more posts were sanctioned with the efforts of the Administration. The last date for receipt of applications was February 6. 

The Deputy Director also told the Bench that the pilot project for digital display of slots for outdoor patients would be made functional by August 15 to regulate the number of patients in the OPDs. He said the multi-level parking lot proposed near the existing parking lot in front of the New OPD would also be completed this year.

Speaking for the Bench, Justice Sharma asserted that it had, in larger public interest, widened the scope of the petition to mitigate troubles faced by patients coming to the PGI from Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Justice Sharma added that the PGI was primarily a research-oriented institute. The doctors would get sufficient time to undertake research work as per the objectives of the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, Act, 1966, with the effective introduction of the slot system.

Justice Sharma also expressed the hope that the posts would be filled by March 31. “We have taken judicial notice of the fact that patients and their attendants face a lot of difficulties while parking their vehicles in the institute…. We place on record our appreciation for the sincere efforts made by the Deputy Director (Administration) in filling the vacant posts and to introduce the digital slot system, as well as construction of a new parking lot..,” the Bench asserted before parting with the order.

Nearly 20,000 patients visit the OPDs daily. The prescription of the slot system had come at a time when there was a growing demand from doctors to place a cap on the number of patients.

Taking judicial notice of long queues of patients, the Bench on Thursday had prescribed the slot system as a cure for the overburdened OPDs. Asking the PGI’s Director or the Deputy Director (Administration) to be present, the Bench had asked him to specify the number of vacant posts.