Punjab Government targeting doctors to hide its own shortcomings: Associations
Jalandhar, August 7
Doctors from various associations under the state umbrella body, “Global Healers Punjab”, today demanded the resignation of Health Minister Chetan Singh Jouramajra over the behaviour meted out to doctors recently. Doctors demanded the resignation of the Health Minister for his behaviour that was “unbecoming of the position he is holding”. They also said plans had been devised for statewide protest on the issue if the government didn’t respond to their demands by August 15 this year.
Mohalla clinic of no use
- Global Healers Punjab described mohalla clinics on Delhi’s pattern a “fraud and political drama” to gain cheap publicity and of no use at all
- Assn members alleged that the expenditure of Rs 18-20 lakh on each “mohalla clinic” was a scam
The Global Healers Punjab includes former presidents of the Punjab Medical Council and other state medical bodies and IMA and PCMS members among other associations. Doctors said their aim was to “rebut ongoing conspiracies and onslaughts on medical fraternity by successive governments”.
Doctors said: “The Punjab Government’s inexperienced Cabinet Ministers are daily demolishing remnants of the civil and legal code – whatever little survived from the bad governance of the previous regimes.”
Dr Manjit Singh Randhawa, former president, PCMS Association, and convener, Punjab Chapter of Global Healers Punjab, said: “As many as 50 doctors have resigned in the recent past. Under the present state government, doctors and medical staff were being treated as ‘scapegoats’ of government’s own shortcomings and failures to provide quality medical care in government hospitals.
The doctors’ body demanded immediate restoration of the Ayushman Bharat scheme for poor patients at all the empanelled hospitals in the state.
