Mid-Day:
Mumbai: Sunday, 27 December 2015.
The ambitious
plan of the BMC to address the acute shortage of doctors at 18 peripheral
hospitals has fallen flat on its face. Of 217 vacancies for Special Medical
Consultants (SMCs), a post with Rs 75,000 as monthly honorarium, only 84 have
been filled.
The
information, revealed a response to an RTI query accessed by SUNDAY mid-day,
shows that important departments such as pediatrics, gynecology and obstetrics,
surgery and anesthesia, have barely managed to fill the vacancies. Medicine,
one of the most important departments, given the alarming outbreak of swine flu
and dengue in 2015, has managed to fill only two out of 53 slots. Despite the
permission to pursue private practice after working hours, candidates refuse to
take up the post.
Dr Jayesh
Lele, president of the Indian Medical Association (Maharashtra), pointed out
that R75,000 honorarium is low compared to what’s offered at private hospitals.
“There are documentation and clerical hassles, patient overload, lack of
resources and medicines that doctors in the civic sector struggle with. This
discourages them,” said Lele. He added that if the BMC wished to address the
issue of staff crunch, it would have to be a better pay master.
In June 2014,
the BMC had announced a proposal to recruit 500 SMCs, a newly created post to
address the shortage of staff. In its first phase, 230 SMCs were invited
through job advertisements released from July 2014 to September 2015. Out of
these, 217 were meant for peripheral hospitals and 13 for the critically
short-staffed Sewri TB hospital. The criteria for interested applicants was
low: post-graduate degree holders from a recognized university or institute
with at least one year of professional experience or PG diploma holders with
two years of experience. September 15 was the deadline for applications, and
recruitments were to be finished in 45 days after that. There were further
concessions on age as well. But, not enough.
A senior
doctor from KEM Hospital revealed that recent attacks on the doctors (such as
the one in KEM Hospital this September) could also be why doctors have turned
their backs on the offer. “Attacks affect the decision-making power of a doctor
and puts him/her under constant threat of being thrashed for something that is
beyond his/her control. The private sector provides better security and
freedom,” said the specialist.
The president
of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, Dr Sagar Mundada said that
despite the pressure faced by existing doctors due to staff shortage in civic
hospitals, it is surprising that there are few takers. “In secondary medical
care centers in distant villages, the displeasure of doctors can be because of
the lack of infrastructure. However, in a city like Mumbai, the poor response
is surprising.”
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