RMOs allege discrimination in duty allotment at Civil Hospital

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, May 16

Rural Medical Officers (RMOs) rendering their services in treating coronavirus patients at the local Civil Hospital have alleged discrimination in allotment of duties.

They alleged that duties were not being allotted to particular doctors on recommendation of politicians or higher authorities in the department while others are being overburdened by doing nine duties in one rotation.

Besides, they also alleged that the district Health Department had not deputed a single Punjab Civil Medical Services (PCMS) doctor in Covid-19 wards and they were given lighter duties such as contact tracing and taking care of patients in quarantine centres at Meritorious School and the National Institute of Technology (NIT).

Of the total 67 RMOs assigned duties in isolation wards, only 43 have been attending to Covid patients, while 10 of them have been given duties similar to PCMS doctors, three have been exempted on medical grounds and around eight of the RMOs are untraceable and never found doing duty at the hospital, they alleged.

The RMOs said among those 43 working RMOs, there was unequal distribution of duties.

“At this time of crisis, discrimination among the staff members, using political affiliations or connections to reduce working hours or get limited number of shifts, is something not acceptable,” said one of the RMOs.

He further presented pictures of roaster of the Civil Hospital which are in possession of The Tribune, pointing out the disparity in allotment of duty.

“While one RMO is doing nine or seven duties in one rotation, others are doing only one or two. There is no proper distribution of duties, some of the doctors are overburdened, while others are having enough time to relax,” he said, adding such laxity by the department was really a matter of concern.

They said they had brought the matter to the notice of the authorities concerned and raised questions over irregularities in allotting duties, but they never got a satisfactory reply.

Meanwhile, Gurvinder Chawla, Civil Surgeon, Jalandhar, said allotment of duties and working of RMOs comes under the jurisdiction of the medical superintendent, while the medical superintendent said Dr Chanjeev was looking after duty allotment of RMOs.

Surprisingly, Dr Chanjeev, in-charge, duty allotment, said the allocation of RMOs was being done by the Civil Surgeon and he was only looking after internal roaster assigning duties as per the workforce he had been allocated. He confirmed that 43 RMOs were working and said among them six were specialists whose duties had been assigned, so basically the number of RMOs working at present stands at 36. When questioned about the untraceable RMOs, he said the Civil Surgeon knows about the same.