And now, winter vacations for doctors!
Half the faculty strength allowed sabbatical at patients’ cost
Come winters and the already dismal strength of senior doctors in the tertiary care hospitals falls to half. Despite acute problems faced by the public due to dire shortage of doctors in all hospitals, the doctors are allowed a ‘winter vacation’.
Patients face immense hardships due to the non-availability of senior doctors in the hospitals. However the hospital administration feels that the practice of medical faculty availing the vacation is a country-wide norm.
“It is happening everywhere. We divide the number of medical faculty in every department into two batches, each availing one-month vacation in the two winter months,” Dr. Parvez Ahmed Shah, HOD Medicine at GMC Srinagar said. “The number of doctors is never inadequate at any point in the winter months,” he added.
Senior officials wishing anonymity at GMC Srinagar however feel that it is perplexing how a number that is already inadequate can be a satisfying number when it is reduced to half. “We are already short of senior doctors, and then suddenly, half of them are not available. The situation is alarming but is hushed up,” the official remarked.
Official documents from GMC Srinagar present a disturbing picture. The ‘winter vacation’ commenced from January 1st 2015 up to February 28th 2015. Whereas most departments will have senior doctor strength half of the original, some departments will have a single person left for a period of one month.
A senior faculty member at GMC said, “We are in a way forced to avail our vacation in these two month only. Flexibility of timing our vacation could mean a lot to our life choices.”
Stakeholders feel that the norm of ‘winter vacation’ needs immediate rectification. “If the faculty members that go on vacation in a particular month are distributed all over the year, we would have only about a tenth staff deficit in a particular month,” a senior administrative officer in Health and Medical Education said.
According to official sources, about 300 posts of consultants are lying vacant in Health and Medical Education Department. In addition, there are thousands of doctors required to fill the gap in ensuring an adequate doctor-patient ratio in the state.
