RTI queries on medical education go unanswered

The Hindu: Chennai: Wednesday, 19 August 2015.

A set of questions on doctor vacancies, resignations and steps taken for appointments filed under the Right to Information Act have elicited no replies, with the Directorate of Medical Education and the Medical Services Recruitment Board passing them to each other and shifting responsibility.

This correspondent sought details on the sanctioned strength of faculty in non-clinical subjects in government medical colleges in January under the RTI Act. The first request was made to the Directorate of Medical Education, which did not answer the queries. When an appeal was filed with the State Information Commission it did not call the applicant for a hearing. Instead it returned the appeal to the DME who provided answers to three of the 10 questions.

As for the rest, the DME’s office said the issue pertained to the Medical Services Recruitment Board.

The questions asked were: 1. Do all teaching medical colleges have adequate number of professors, assistant professors and associate professors in 1. community medicine; 2. pathology; 3. physiology; 4. forensic medicine; 5. biochemistry; 6. anatomy; 7. microbiology?

The correspondent sought to know the faculty vacancy position in the above subjects; also, in the last three years how many candidates recruited for these specialities refused to take up positions allotted to them. Details of the positions refused, speciality-wise and designation-wise was also sought.

The last question was: In the last four years how many doctors have resigned from their jobs in these specialities? Have their vacancies been filled?

For three of the questions pertaining to the details of positions refused, allocation and filling up of vacancies arising from resignation, the public information officer in the DME replied that the vacancies in the post of assistant professors are filled by the Medical Services Recruitment Board.

On candidates recruited, the officer replied that “the candidates are recruited by the MSRB and hence the details were not available in the Directorate.”